


Death Will Be Our Darling

by orphan_account



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Anger, Angst, Anxiety, Archived, Bad Parenting, Childhood Trauma, Denial, Depression, F/M, Fox Mulder Angst, Fox Mulder Torture, Hospitalization, Hurt Fox Mulder, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Mental Anguish, Mental Health Issues, Mental Institutions, Most of the time.., POV Dana Scully, Past Character Death, Past Child Abuse, Past Relationship(s), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Trauma, Psychologists & Psychiatrists, Self-Harm, Self-Mutilation, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, Violence, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-29
Updated: 2019-10-29
Packaged: 2021-01-06 02:44:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 19
Words: 94,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21219275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Mulder gets carjacked, and after recovering enough to go back to temporary desk work doing profiles, finds out he's better than ever--which has it's own problems--and that certain people don't appreciate that.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A classic that everyone should read. Originally posted by Deborah Goldstein. Archived here only as an easier access.
> 
> * * *

**Georgetown University Medical Center**  
** Critical Care Unit, bed 3**  
** 4:17 a.m., June 19**

It was the headache that finally woke him. He'd had hangovers, fatigue and eyestrain headaches, the occasional sinus headache, and way too many post-concussion headaches. Roll them all together, add in that skull-splitter he'd had in Alaska after almost dying from the blood-thickening alien virus, and you came up with something that didn't hold a candle to this one. If he could have figured out a way to cut off his head he'd do it--and not care two hoots in a holler that he was committing suicide. However, since the pain made it impossible to think of a method, he did the only thing he could: he groaned in agony.

That was a mistake. The vibration of his own voice was just that tiny bit too much. In mid-groan he fell back into unconsciousness.

* * *

**11:21 p.m., June 25**

Words that weren't in any language he understood provided the rhythm to his life. There were male and female voices, but they never seemed to hear him when he told them about the headache. Finally, he couldn't stand it any longer, and decided that he'd scream loud enough to wake the dead, if that's what it took to make them listen. ". . . hurts."

Margaret Scully leaned forward and tenderly stroked the flaccid hand lying on top of the bed covers. "Fox, it's Margaret Scully--Dana's mother. You have to talk louder, dear; I can't quite understand you." She held her breath for fear that she'd miss his next attempt.

". . . hurts."

He was talking. A real word, not gibberish. After three days in a coma and another six days of agitated, incoherent delirium, Fox was waking up, and Dana wasn't here. For just a moment, Margaret berated herself for insisting that her daughter go home and sleep in her own bed for one entire night. Then she put that pang of guilt aside and said, "What hurts, Fox?"

There was a long pause, long enough for her to press the nurse's call button and then wonder if she hadn't imagined it after all.

". . . head . . ."

Mrs. Scully was a saint. She had to be--not only had she stopped the pain, but she'd found a way to teach all those voices to speak English. This one was saying something about "glad you're back with us" and "get the doctor".

When the voice had gone, he decided to simply enjoy the emptiness left behind inside his head when the pain had stopped. It was so quiet he could swear he could hear rosary beads slipping between Mrs. Scully's fingers. They went _beep . . . beep . . . beep . . . beep . . .._ It was much too bright behind his closed eyes, but that was still better than the excruciating black he'd been not- seeing for however long it was.

The entire right side of his head itched. He started to reach up to scratch, and a flare of agony stopped him. That's when he realized that his shoulder had moved, but not the elbow or wrist. He had a broken arm, with a cast on it. Well, if the right hand couldn't get there, maybe the left could. That hand barely moved.

Great.

He hated it when they restrained him. That had happened a couple of times before. Hospitals had such stupid rules about removing restraints, too. Like you had to not scratch all the itchy places where there were IVs, stitches, and tape, and not move the oxygen tubing that was tickling your nose, and God forbid if you even _touched_ the Foley catheter tubing that pulled unmercifully if you didn't turn over in slow motion to make sure it wasn't hung up somewhere. _That_ was sure to get you restrained for another twenty-four hours, as well as a lecture on how much damage you could do to your bladder if you pulled the catheter out.

But if you asked, sometimes--

He was asleep before he had the chance to try.

* * *

**6:30 p.m., June 30**

"Yes, Mom . . . _Yes_, Mom . . . No, Mom . . . I love you, too, Mom."

Scully took the phone from his ear and hung it up. "What did she say?"

"Mostly unintelligible. I _think_ she understands." His mother's recovery from her stroke last year had been remarkable, but not nearly complete. He could remember all the trouble he'd had trying to find a way for her to stay at home. It had taken a dozen trips up there, each time to hire a new live-in companion, before she agreed that she couldn't keep the house and needed to move into an "assisted living" apartment. At least she had been happy there the last time he went see her.

Maybe he should write her a letter; she could understand writing better than she understood speech. Maybe Scully or her mom would do that for him. Maybe he'd actually remember something about this conversation later. He realized he was beginning to sound pretty bitter, even to himself, and told himself to cut it out.

At that point in his brooding Scully said, "I could write her a letter if you want me to."

He didn't reply because he was afraid he'd scream in frustration instead. His right arm was in a cast and the brain damage had almost completely paralyzed his left arm and leg--he was nearly as helpless as a newborn baby. The only thing that kept him from screaming was the fear that he'd trigger a headache if he opened his mouth that wide and made that much noise.

Scully must have learned how to read his mind because this time she said, "Mulder, you know, if you weren't so weak you'd be besieged by every neurosurgeon, neurologist, memory expert, and therapist on the East Coast."

He blinked at her in surprise. "Huh?"

She grinned at him. "Isabelle--that's Dr. Carrington, your doctor, by the way--and your PT think your recovery is due to your eidetic memory. Isabelle doesn't know how, of course, but you're getting back the use of your left side at a rate that's nearly unbelievable."

He smiled at finally hearing some good news and turned his attention to something equally important. "So what happened to me, Scully? Nobody's told me anything." Moving very slowly to minimize the headache and dizziness from the skull fractures, Mulder shifted his head to center his uncovered left eye on her. "If I haven't remembered it yet, can't we assume the retrograde amnesia is permanent?"

Scully shifted from standing with her weight on her right foot to standing with her weight centered, and crossed her arms, giving him one of her patented "Don't try my patience, Mulder" looks. As much as he could see her in the dim light which was all he could tolerate, she looked exhausted and out of sorts, but he didn't care. Right now she was the most beautiful person he'd ever seen. Not that Mrs. Scully wasn't good looking, but she wasn't the right Scully.

His Scully might have been at his bedside eighteen to twenty hours a day for two full weeks, but he didn't remember seeing her. He didn't remember seeing her mother either, except for today before Scully came. Hell, he didn't remember much of _anything_ from the last five days. As far as he could remember, this was the first time he'd seen Scully since saying goodnight on June 4th. At least that was better than it had been. When he first woke up, according to the nurse, he couldn't remember anything after Memorial Day. It was frustrating. It was more than frustrating, it was driving him crazy.

He knew the medical reason for the gaping hole in his memory-- retrograde and anterograde amnesia secondary to traumatic brain injury. His chart would have TBI as his primary diagnosis, and they would gauge his overall progress, to a certain extent, on how quickly he regained his memories from before the accident, and on how soon his memory since he woke up started being continuous rather than spotty. But knowing the reason for the amnesia didn't make it any easier to accept. And this was _nothing_ like the few hours he'd lost when he'd had his memory tinkered with at Ellens Air Force Base. If he counted in the time after whatever-it-was happened until his first clear memory, then he was talking about more than _three weeks_ missing.

How was he supposed to live with all that time missing? How the hell was he supposed to live if his memory never got any better than it was now? It wasn't like for other people. They didn't have eidetic memories. They--

Scully was answering him, and she'd be pissed if he wasn't paying attention.

"Mulder, I can't. You have to talk to the police first and--" She stopped in mid-sentence with a look of horror on her face.

He pounced. "Too late, Scully. You can't take it back. If I have to talk to the police, then get them in here *today*, and then tell me what the hell happened to me! For that matter, why the police? Why not you? Why not Ski--?"

His entire head exploded into agony, so bad he could feel himself teetering on the brink of unconsciousness. Scully must have pushed the button on his IV pump that gave him an extra dose of Demerol, because after several minutes he could feel the pain slowly back down toward its usual level. When he could open his eye again and look at her, Scully was talking to a nurse he hadn't heard come in. He caught the end of her explanation: ". . . tried to say too much at once. All that muscle movement--" The nurse nodded and left.

That was interesting. It made sense, too. They wouldn't even let him try pureed foods instead of the Ensure he drank for meals because that would be too much work. Chewing and talking used a lot of the same facial muscles, so if simply mouthing pureed "whatever" was working too hard, then saying more than a couple of sentences at once was obviously working too long.

Scully sighed and turned back to him. "Mulder, I'll talk to Dr. Carrington, but don't be surprised if nothing happens. She rarely lets the police talk to her patients until they're out of the CCU."

She shook her head then. "And no, I don't know when you'll 'graduate'. I'm not a neurosurgeon, I don't specialize in head injuries, and I will not risk losing my and my mother's unlimited visiting privileges by pestering Dr. Carrington."

He knew better than to try nodding. He started to point to the IV pump, indicating he wanted more Demerol, but he couldn't lift his left arm or hand enough to point. Scully interpreted his aborted movement correctly anyway. In another few minutes the pain receded still more, enough to let him fall asleep.

* * *

**Georgetown University Medical Center**  
** Step-down Unit, room 712**  
** 9:45 a.m., July 7**

Scully was sitting next to her mother. Assistant Director Skinner was at the window, half-perched on the sill, because there wasn't space for four chairs in this room. Mulder let Dr. Carrington raise the head of the bed two-thirds of the way up--the maximum he could tolerate. If he did it for himself, he got dizzy at about half way up because he had to watch for the "stop here" mark taped to the bed rail rather than stare straight ahead. When the bed had stopped moving, he carefully turned his head a bit to the left, so he was looking more-or-less at all four of them, but not at the window.

He knew that with the window blinds drawn, the door closed, and all the lights off, there was enough light for them, but just that small amount from around the edges of the blinds was more than he'd be able to tolerate, even with sunglasses on, if this conference lasted more than ten or fifteen minutes. It was a toss-up which was worse, the constant headache and double vision, or the unbelievable sensitivity to light and glare. The first could be handled with morphine instead of Demerol now, the second by closing one eye, but the only thing he could do for the last was keep his eyes closed _and_ covered, or have the door shut, the lights out, and the window completely opaqued, with only the "night light" illuminating his room. That, of course, wasn't an option when the staff had to do something, so he spent the greater portion of his waking hours with his eyes covered. At least his left arm was back to normal. He'd know about the leg when he tried walking.

"Patient Care Conference". God, he hated that term. A bunch of medical people got together and decided what they were going to do to you. If you were conscious and awake when they were done deciding, you got asked what you thought about the plans, and if you had any objections. Then they went ahead with their plans anyway. Maybe this time, however, with three "civilians"--he decided to count Scully on his side--and just the doctor, he'd actually have some say in what was decided.

Skinner went first. He was finally going to hear what had happened to him on June 16th.

"You got carjacked, Agent Mulder. In Georgetown. In the middle of a case. The best the police can determine from where you were lying in the parking lot, the perpetrator surprised you while you were unlocking the car. Given that it was night, and with the power outage and how hard it was raining--and knowing just how narrowly you focus during a case--that makes a certain amount of sense. It does _not _excuse your carelessness, however. You must have gotten your right arm part-way up, but he swung the baseball bat hard enough to break your arm and fracture your skull. Then he took another swing for good measure."

Scully took over at that point. "You're lucky you didn't die right then and there, Mulder. Be thankful the only major problems remaining are a fractured radius and a good portion of the right side of your skull fractured. You could have had--should have had--severe permanent brain damage."

Mulder tried to find some memory--any memory--that fit with that explanation. It was useless. In the week since he'd asked Scully what had happened, his memory had become continuous and eidetic again, and he had also remembered everything from June 4th through mid-morning of the 16th itself. The last thing he remembered was the office phone ringing and himself reaching out to pick it up. Then his memory simply stopped. He didn't even know what case they'd been working on, and Scully had consistently refused to tell him, saying it was solved, closed, over--and had _not_ been an X-File.

He wasn't satisfied with not knowing, so he said to his boss, "Sir, will you tell me about the case? Scully says it doesn't matter."

The look Skinner shot Scully spoke volumes. His words backed up that look. "I assume you're paraphrasing Agent Scully. The case matters a great deal to the Bureau, but it's closed. It was a raid gone bad, with four of our agents and six D.C. police officers killed. Every available agent and police officer was called in. You and Agent Scully were sent home because you weren't needed any longer. Agent Scully's report says you volunteered to get the car because of the rain. You know the rest."

Even that extra information didn't help him remember. He mentally shrugged off the frustration he felt at *not* being able to remember, and turned carefully to look at his doctor. "Now what? When can I get out of here and go back to work?" The question was only partly facetious.

Isabelle Carrington shook her head, sending her bead-tipped braids swinging gently. "Agent Mulder, this is only your third day out of the CCU. Don't you _ever_ relax?" She smiled and glanced at Scully and her mother and Skinner, including them in her explanation.

"I won't discharge you until the pain can be managed by oral painkillers. You're doing well, even after we switched you to IV morphine, but you're still on strict bed rest. For that matter, you're not yet sitting straight up in bed. When you begin standing, things will definitely get worse before they get better, so don't get discouraged.

"We'll also continue monitoring you very closely for seizures. They're common after head injuries, so you won't be allowed to get out of bed or walk unless someone is with you every step of the way for at least the first couple of weeks. If you were to fall, you could kill yourself by hitting your head against something.

"You can assume the skull fractures will be healed in another three weeks. Your fractured radius might take a week or two more- -a total of seven or eight weeks. Light sensitivity as extreme as yours after a head injury is almost unheard of, but it _will_ get better. The double vision--" She shrugged. "The Optometrist with our Head Injury Program will come see you when you're a bit stronger; he can tell you more. The headaches will gradually diminish in intensity and frequency, and should be gone in six months."

"Six months! You're telling me I have to live with these . . . these . . .." He couldn't find the words to convey the intensity of pain. "For up to another six mo--" He had to stop in mid-word, because if he didn't he was sure he'd pass out.

Dr. Carrington was polite enough to wait till the extra morphine had taken effect and he could pay attention again. Her list of cans and can'ts--and there were easily ten times as many can'ts-- went on for entirely too long. Her Jamaican accent was very soothing and he found himself with his eyes closed, listening to the sound of her words, not their content. Then the simultaneous change in her voice and the sound of her shifting position snapped his attention back to her.

She had turned directly to his boss. "If you can accommodate those restrictions, Assistant Director Skinner, Agent Mulder can return to desk work any time he feels ready after his first week out of the hospital. Just don't expect him to be able to work anywhere near a full day for quite a while."

Then she spoke to all of them again. "I'll leave you four to discuss things. I know it sounds overwhelming, so I want you to write down any questions or concerns you have, any at all. I'll come back this afternoon--say, 4:30?--to answer those questions. I'll put my answers in writing." She paused and pulled several sheets of paper out of her jacket pocket. "These reiterate what I told you, and further explain some of the restrictions. Dr. Scully can probably answer most of your 'why' questions." She put the papers on his over-bed table, nodded to each of them, and left.

She left behind stunned silence. Mrs. Scully and Skinner were obviously trying to comprehend everything she'd said--and he'd missed 95% of it. He reached out with his left hand for the papers, intending to quickly read through them so the others wouldn't know he had no idea what had been said.

Scully got there ahead of him. "Mulder! Stop that! You know you'll be seeing double if you try to read more than a line or two. Let me go over this with Mom and Mr. Skinner, while you rest. I'll come back in an hour--I promise--and then I'll answer your questions." The look she gave him said she knew he'd zoned out and she was sparing him the embarrassment of the others finding out.

She herded them out of the room, shutting the door quietly but firmly. So he did the only reasonable thing: he put the bed back down and took a nap.

* * *

**Dr. Isabelle Carrington's office**  
** 11:29 a.m.**

Scully couldn't believe she'd missed the implications of the Dilantin until she'd read through those papers with her mom and Mr. Skinner. Or was it that she wouldn't let herself see them? She just hoped Mulder was still sleeping, and that he wouldn't realize she hadn't come back in the promised hour. But she couldn't tell him this, and what it meant. She had decided to try to get Dr. Carrington to see her side--Mulder's side--of the situation, which was why she was now sitting here in the doctor's office.

"Isabelle, you've got to understand. Mulder is not your typical head injury patient--"

"No, Dana, _you've_ got to understand. This isn't your specialty; grant that I know my business. Seizures are practically a given. He hasn't had any yet, that's true, but that might very well be because he's already on the Dilantin. And he'll stay on it, for the full three years that's recommended."

Isabelle sat back, behind her desk, and looked at her as if she was being childishly resistant to something she knew she had to do. Scully shook off the feeling and replied, "I do understand. I know the medical reasoning. But I also know Mulder. I can tell you for a fact that he'll be dead inside a month if you tell him he's on an anticonvulsant for three years. What you have to understand is that Mulder is a Field Agent, and there's no way the FBI will allow him in the field on an anticonvulsant. You're sentencing him to three years of desk work with no possibility of parole. Mulder won't want to live like that. He'll give up without even trying."

The neurosurgeon came around to the front of the desk, taking the chair next to the one she was in. "How can you be so sure? How do you know that he won't understand and accept it, as he's accepted the other problems--the double vision, the dizzy spells, the headaches, to name just three? They come with the territory. If he can accept those, why can't he accept the need to take precautions and try to prevent seizures? One seizure, Dana, that's all it takes. Then he _will _be on medicine for the rest of his life."

"One seizure _maybe _versus Dilantin for three years _for sure_. The X-Files for an unknown length of time versus desk work for three years. There's no comparison as far as Mulder's concerned. He won't say a word to you, he'll take the medicine--how can he not? He can't even open his eyes when the nurse hands him the various liquids, so how could he know the Dilantin from any of his other medicine except maybe by taste? And with the headaches still so overwhelming, I doubt that he cares about any medicine except the morphine.

"Isabelle, he'll stop fighting. His morphine usage will skyrocket, he'll quit working on sitting up straighter in bed, he'll . . . I don't know what else, and I know he won't actively try to kill himself, but he'll just quit. One night the nurse will come in to check on him and he'll just be dying. And I categorically refuse to give you permission to put him back on life support. When he first came in, yes, obviously he needed it. There was no way he could have survived if he hadn't been on life support until his breathing stabilized. But if he decides he doesn't want to live, I'm not going to force him."

Isabelle looked at her with an expression she couldn't decipher, and stood up to walk across her office. She paused in front of a framed photograph of a ramshackle hut with a man, a pregnant woman, three very young naked boys, a goat, and a half-starved dog in front of it. She put up a hand and gently caressed the faces. When she spoke, she was speaking to the picture. Her voice was very gentle and very sad. "You shouldn't have said that, Dana. You couldn't possibly know what memories you would bring up."

She took the picture down, brought it back and handed it to her. "This was my family. It's the only picture that was ever taken. I'm the not-yet-born one. This was in 1930, in Jamaica, and my parents were very, very poor. They did what they had to, to put food on the table for themselves and my brothers. They even demanded payment for posing for that picture. Obviously they had no money for school if they didn't even have money for clothes for my brothers.

"When I was twelve, an epidemic went through the region. Probably dysentery or cholera, but we'll never know. My entire family died, as well as most of the people in the village. I didn't die because I was working for a rich man in a nearby town. I wanted an education so badly, Dana, that I just about sold myself into slavery to get the chance to work in a house that had books, and where the owner wouldn't beat me if I asked to read them. I lived in his house and ate the leftover food prepared for him and drank the water that came from his faucets. Not like my family, who drank untreated water from the village's community well and barely warmed their food because they couldn't afford enough fuel to cook with.

"When I found out that the rest of my family was dead, I wanted to die. In a week I was on my deathbed. Literally. Then the man for whom I worked came to show me the books that had arrived. He'd ordered them just for me, because I cared about books as passionately as he did."

She took the picture back and held it for a minute before going to hang it up again. "So I know what you mean by willing yourself to die. I thought I had nothing left to live for, yet I willed myself to live because I was reminded that there was something I cared for more than I cared whether I lived or died.

"If Fox Mulder cares that much about the 'X-Files', whatever they are, then I won't take them away from him."

Back at her desk now, Isabelle was once again the efficient neurosurgeon. "I can't just stop the anticonvulsant, you know. It's part of the hospital's protocol for head injuries. Mulder has to start paying attention to his meds, _all_ of them, so he'll know which is the Dilantin and can refuse it. You're not likely to be happy with what happens then, and I guarantee you he won't like it. I'll have to switch him to an IV anticonvulsant temporarily, whether he likes the idea or not. He's going to have to sit through--" She suddenly cracked a smile. "Well, 'lie through' is more accurate, in both senses of the word--lie through mandatory patient education sessions about the possibility of seizures and what damage they can do, and what the drugs do, and prove that he understands all that, and then still refuse. He'll also have to talk to a psychiatrist to prove he's competent to make the decision to refuse to take an anticonvulsant. Given how overwhelming the headaches are and how often he simply drifts off--I _did _notice that during the Care Conference, Dana--that's not going to be easy. John Kennedy is normally my first choice if I have to refer someone to a psychiatrist, but Mulder wouldn't stand a chance of convincing him."

Dr. Carrington fell silent, forehead puckering as she mentally scanned their options. "It'll have to be Lamont. Yes, I'll make sure it's Lamont that Mulder talks to. He's semi-retired, and with good reason: he's a good man, but he's more worried about his terminally ill wife than anything else these days." She was quiet for a moment, then brightened, apparently enjoying the conspiracy. "All right, then, I'll call Lamont.

"Once Mulder gets through those hurdles, he'll have to sign a release saying he knows what could happen to him, and he's willing to take that responsibility AND that he gives up the right to sue his doctors and the hospital and any of its employees if he should have a seizure at any time. If he's not able to do all that, or if you or he aren't willing to accept that responsibility, Dana, then you're stuck. You've got his Medical Power of Attorney, and because you're a physician, the hospital won't let you stop the Dilantin now, when you didn't object to it initially. So don't even discuss this with him, if you think or know he can't handle it. Remember, we're going to have to be on the side of reason on this. Mulder's going to have be stubborn and stick to his position, no matter how outrageous it seems."

Dana cracked up; she couldn't help it, no matter how serious the doctor was being. When her whoops of laughter had calmed down to intermittent giggles, she was finally able to explain. "Oh, God, Isabelle, you've just described the Mulder I work with every day. He comes up with these totally unscientific, absolutely _impossible_ theories, and it's my job to refute them, to prove there's a reasonable, logical, scientifically-based solution to the problem. Usually we come to a compromise. Sometimes--not often, but sometimes--he comes all the way around to my way of seeing things. I guess this time he won't, will he?"

Isabelle smiled at that, then turned serious yet again. "Dana, even if Mulder remains totally seizure-free, it'll still be at least six months before I'll give him a medical release for full duty. It could be a lot longer: I want to see three months with _no_ residual physical problems."

Scully nodded slowly, thinking that over. "What about driving? Will that same three months apply? He's going to get very . . .." She wasn't sure how to put it politely, then settled on, "Antsy, if I have to drive him everywhere when nothing's wrong any longer."

This time Isabelle was the one to laugh. "Oh, so he's one of _those _men, is he? Don't worry. As soon as he's able, I'll schedule him for a driving evaluation. The DMV's 'six months seizure-free' rule is only for someone who's had a seizure. Mulder hasn't had any so that doesn't apply."

So things weren't nearly as bad as she'd imagined they would be before this talk. And she hadn't hurt the tentative friendship she'd established with this woman who had overcome more, and higher, obstacles in her lifetime than any Dana could imagine would face her and Mulder.

All she had to do now was try to explain to Mulder his part in this "conspiracy".

And survive the next six months.


	2. Chapter 2

**Margaret Scully's house**   
** 10:07 p.m., July 27**

The full-throated scream, cut off before it really started, brought Margaret Scully out of her chair and half way up the stairs before she realized what she was doing. Then she moved even faster, snapping on the hall light at the top of the stairs and running the few feet to Fox's bedroom. She caught herself before she turned on the overhead light--he still couldn't tolerate glare, and wore sunglasses even indoors on these bright sunny days--and waited the minute until her eyes had dark-adapted a bit before stepping into the room to check on him.

There was enough light coming in from the hall to see him. His face was sweat-covered and probably pale, though it was too dark to be sure about that, and from the way he was sprawled in the bed, she thought he might have been sitting when this happened. His breathing was irregular and shallow, the way it was during his worst headaches.

She put a hand on his left arm and shook it gently. "Fox." No answer. She repeated it louder. "FOX." At that point, she took his wrist and counted his pulse. 120. Much too fast; time to call for help.

The conversation with 911 had been enough to make her want to scream. She hadn't been able to make the dispatcher understand that she wasn't supposed to shake him vigorously to try to wake him up; with his recent head injury, any unexpected jostling could be dangerous. Still, the ambulance was on the way. She hit the first speed-dial button, then waited for Dana to pick up the phone.

"Hello?" Dana sounded like she'd been asleep. Just like Fox. She was still recovering from the exhaustion that had prevented her from taking Fox home when he was discharged on the 25th, and he simply didn't have any stamina at all. They both took naps and still went to bed right after dinner.

"Dana, honey--"

"Mom! What's wrong? Is it Mulder? Is he--"

Dana had interrupted her; now she interrupted her daughter. "Yes, it's Fox. He screamed and passed out. I've called the ambulance already. Can you meet us at the hospital?" She could see Dana in her mind's eye: she had the cordless phone and she was already juggling it and pieces of clothing, trying to be ready to go literally as soon as she hung up.

"Of course, Mom. Don't let them take him to the nearest hospital; make sure he goes back to GUMC. Be sure to tell the EMTs to call in his doctor's name. Isabelle might just still be there."

"Dana, don't be silly. Look at the clock--it's 10:13 on a Sunday. She'll have gone home hours ago, if she came in at all. Now, you just get there safely, you understand? I don't want to hear you've been in an accident trying to get there at the same time we do. You know your place is farther away than we are." Dana gave one of those "yes, mother" sighs that all children are so good at, then said goodbye.

She showed the EMTs up to Fox's bedroom, hoping, but not expecting, that he'd be awake by now. It was barely five minutes when the two EMTs, and the two firemen who'd also come, carefully picked Fox up and moved him over to the gurney. These men, at least, listened to her--they didn't put the rigid collar on like they would do for someone with a suspected neck injury, but one of them actually crawled onto the bed to be able to keep Fox's head as still as possible while they moved him. They didn't strap his head down either; they asked whether all the fractures were healed, which they were--barely--so they borrowed two of her feather pillows and taped those down to the gurney, gently immobilizing his head between them.

They were strapping his legs when she heard his first querulous, "What?"

The EMT at his head immediately stopped whatever it was he'd been doing with the IV, turning to Fox and trying to shine that bright light into his eyes. Fox screwed his eyes shut, flinched and tried to turn his head aside, tried to get his left hand up--he couldn't; his arms were already strapped down--and said, "No! No lights. It hurts."

"Mr. Mulder, please, I have to--" The EMT was trying to be polite.

Eyes still tightly shut against the glare of the room lights, Fox started struggling against the straps, trying to free his arms. "NO! There's nothing wrong. Just leave me alone. I fainted; I'll be all right."

She stepped forward, putting a hand on EMT's shoulder. "Wait. Let me try." She then put her hand on Fox's shoulder. "Fox. Calm down. Listen to me. You screamed. You didn't faint; you passed out from the pain. You *have* to go to the hospital. We have to know what happened."

He wasn't listening; that was obvious. He was still trying to get loose, and his breathing was rapidly turning into those peculiar, high-pitched grunts he made when the headaches were really bad. In between the grunts he was still trying to say he was fine, he didn't need to go back to the hospital.

Finally, she pulled rank. In her best "I'm your mother, and what I say, goes" tone of voice, she said, "Fox! Stop that immediately. The subject is closed. You're going."

He stopped struggling; a faint smile touched his lips, then he said, "Yes, Mom," and passed out again. The affection in his voice was there for all of them to hear.

Georgetown University Medical Center  
Emergency Room 10:30 p.m.

She'd never entered an Emergency Room from the ambulance entrance before. That didn't seem to make a difference; they still wanted her to go to the registration desk. She refused flatly, saying, "Fox Mulder. M-U-L-D-E-R. He was just discharged on the 25th. Workers' Comp. is paying for this, and I'm staying with him." One of those statements must have been the magic one; she suspected that it was the "Workers' Comp." one.

He was still unconscious when she made her way back to his cubicle, with a doctor and two nurses practically swarming over him as they hooked him up to what looked like half the machinery he'd been attached to in the Critical Care Unit. They ignored her polite attempts to interrupt their work, moving around her as if she were an immovable piece of equipment.

Finally, she couldn't take it any longer. They had no idea what they were dealing with, and she did. "If you people will just STOP for a minute, I can tell you how to wake him up."

That did it. All six eyes turned to stare at her. "His skull fractures are barely healed. He still gets the headaches, although he hasn't passed out in nearly two weeks. They gave him IV morphine--I don't know the dose, but he was discharged on the 25th. He was in room 603, and I'm pretty sure one of the nurses there will remember how much they were giving him."

The doctor, who looked all of nineteen but had to be older than that to have his M.D., nodded, and one of the nurses left the cubicle to make the call.

She sat, holding her feather pillows, waiting for the morphine to take effect and for Dana to arrive, remembering that last time he had passed out from the pain.

It had been a bad day. Heck, it had been a bad week. Dr. Carrington had been completely accurate when she'd said things would get worse before they got better when he started being up on his feet and then walking. She stood at the nurses' station, thinking that Fox looked like nothing more than a cranky six- year-old who knew exactly what he had to do, and didn't want to do it. He had bare feet because he swore that his balance, which was nowhere near what anyone could consider good, was better that way. He wore hospital pajama bottoms--too short, of course--and a hospital gown, and he pushed an IV stand with his casted right arm while pushing the special one-handed walker with the left. The shaved swath on the right side of his head was still growing in, giving him a very off-center reverse Mohawk hairdo. Add in the beard, which he'd decided to keep even though he could tolerate the pressure of a razor now, and the almost opaque wrap- around sunglasses, and he looked like that cranky six-year-old pretending he was a punk rocker. All he needed was the ear ring-- or the nose ring. There were two Physical Therapy Assistants with him, one on each side, holding on with both hands to the handles on the wide belt around his waist as he walked very slowly down the hallway. He obviously didn't like having them there, and just as obviously he knew that he needed their help.

Two days prior, he'd taken his first steps with a Physical Therapist and a PTA, and they all immediately realized that normal walking was impossible. The PT had taught him to slide his feet forward, barely lifting them from the floor, thus minimizing the jarring of his head. But he had trouble with his balance anyway, and the hallway was much brighter than his room, which bothered his eyes a great deal even with the sunglasses, and, all in all, that first trip had lasted barely ten feet before he had to quit.

This afternoon he was trying to stop at twenty feet, ten feet less than he'd gone in the morning, and the PTAs were encouraging him to keep walking. He was supposed to walk all the way to her, where she had his wheelchair waiting for the trip back to his room. She smiled at him, hoping to make him want to go the full thirty feet.

His head, which had been pointing straight ahead in order to minimize his dizziness, suddenly jerked slightly to his right. His whole body changed, lightened somehow, then he smiled one of those wonderful smiles he so rarely used. Dana had just stepped off the elevator; she knew it without even turning around. She watched as he straightened and slid the walker ahead again. He would certainly make these last ten feet, and more besides, if the PTAs would let him. He would try to walk all the way to where Dana was standing.

Suddenly, she started forward, saying, "Fox--don't!"

It was too late. She saw him start to concentrate, start to clench his jaw in determination, but before she could finish her warning, he gritted his teeth, went dead white, and without even a whimper he was a limp body, held up only by the two suddenly struggling PTAs. They obviously were not prepared for him to faint, and they were awkward as they let him slide gently down to the carpeted floor.

Dana was at her side then, watching as the staff converged to pick Fox up and get him back to bed. As the nurse prepared the morphine and slowly injected it into his IV line, she heard Dana mutter, "Mulder, you fool. You consummate fool. You know better. I would have come to you; you didn't need to try to come to me."

She didn't so much as blink. Dana would be mortally embarrassed if she knew her mother had overheard her. But she smiled to herself, hearing the affection and, yes, love, in Dana's voice. Whether that love would ever come to fruition was something she didn't worry about. It was enough to know that, although Fox and Dana might seem more and more at odds as his hospital stay lengthened, they still cared more for each other than for themselves.

"Mom? How is he?"

Dana's voice from behind her brought her back to the present. "Dana. You're asking me? Didn't you check with the doctor?" She smiled to herself and patted the chair next to hers.

"He's busy with another patient." Dana sat down, then in an deliberate dropping of her usual public persona, toed off her shoes and crossed her legs under her, wiggling slightly until she'd found a comfortable position on the molded plastic chair.

Margaret blinked in surprise. Dana had never put on her public persona. Considering how messy her hair was, she must have fallen asleep after dinner still dressed in cut-off jeans and a faded t- shirt, and not even looked in the mirror before coming here.

Dana reached out and took her hand. "Are _you _all right?"

"Yes, I'm fine. They gave him the morphine already. I don't know how much. He should be waking up soon."

"Is Isabelle coming?"

She shook her head. "No, I was right. She hasn't been in at all today. The doctor wants to admit Fox. He says fainting once-- maybe. Fainting twice in less than ten minutes--no way is he going to let Fox walk out of here."

"Mom! He didn't say that!" Dana was teasing her; they both knew how much she loved to take formal pronouncements and turn them into "real people" talk. Then she stiffened in shock. "_Twice_? In ten minutes? Mom, what happened?"

"Fox didn't want to come. He was mostly strapped into the gurney when he started to wake up, and then he didn't want the EMT to shine that bright light in his eyes, and he didn't want to come. I think the only reason he woke up at all is that he felt the straps being tightened. He wouldn't calm down, so I pulled my 'I'm your mother' act, telling him he had to come. He just . . . let go then, let me take the responsibility.

"I'm not worried about the second time, Dana. It's the first one. I've been thinking, and his scream--it wasn't pain; I'm sure of that. It was . . . terror, maybe?" She turned sideways, so she could look directly at her daughter. "Does Fox have nightmares?"

Dana glanced at Fox, almost as if she were apologizing, before she answered. "Yes. Horrible ones, from when his sister, Samantha, was abducted. She was eight, he was twelve, and he couldn't stop it. Sometimes he goes weeks without one, sometimes he has them almost every night. I used to think they were stress related, then I realized that there was no pattern that I would ever be able to figure out. So now I just take them as they come. He calls me, we talk a while, then he goes back to sleep."

Margaret was silent for a minute, trying to decide whether she'd actually heard what she thought she'd heard. "'He' goes back to sleep? What about you?"

Dana wouldn't meet her eyes. "Of course I do, Mom." Silence. "Usually."

Fox had explained to them what happened and was ready to leave by the time the doctor came back. Dr. Epstein was insecure, obviously feeling overwhelmed by the complexity of Fox's case. He antagonized Fox immediately by his attitude, then made things worse by saying, "You can always leave AMA, but if you do that, your insurance won't pay. For the ambulance, the ER charges, and any follow-up charges if things go wrong once you leave. Think about *that* before you leave against medical advice." He then turned around and walked out of the cubicle.

Fox lay back down, defeated, but Dana was chuckling. Chuckling!

Then she said, "Don't worry, Mulder. I'll go soothe his feathers. He's just a brand new Resident. The year starts in July, you know. Besides, it's not true, what he said about the insurance."

When Dana came back, the doctor was following her. His voice was stiff with suppressed anger, but he said the words they all wanted to hear: "Mr. Mulder, you're free to go. Dr. Scully has explained what happened. You need to check with your regular doctor tomorrow, to see what she has to say." He nodded once and left again.

Margaret drove them home in Dana's car. Then she put to bed both her exhausted children--she certainly thought of Fox as one of her brood--and went to bed herself.

* * *

**Margaret Scully's house**   
** 2:30 p.m., August 1**

Walter Skinner parked the Bureau car in front of the house, not wanting to block the driveway where Mrs. Scully's car was parked. Shamelessly he put the "FBI" placard in the windshield. This was the wrong day of the week for parking on this side of the street, but this was official business, after all. He had to know when Mulder would be returning to work, didn't he? That was why he had gone uncharacteristically out of his way to make a 'house call' like this in the first place. He wouldn't stand by to see Mulder written off like a bad debt.

He took a moment to wonder what Mrs. Scully's neighbors would say, then dismissed the thought. Surely by now they knew that Mulder worked for the FBI and that he was here recuperating from his most recent hospital stay. So there should be no reason to be gossiping about the FBI coming to "question" her.

He knocked on the door and Mulder opened it, using his left hand to shield his eyes in addition to the sunglasses. "Sir-- What are you . . .? Come in." Mulder stepped back, then shut the door as soon as he was inside. Mulder's sigh of relief was equal to Skinner's own surprised intake of breath.

All the lights were off, and all the blinds drawn, leaving the house in what seemed to be twilight until his eyes began to adapt from the bright sunlight outside. But Mulder didn't take off his sunglasses. He had thought the light sensitivity was getting better. Then Mulder came around him, preceding him into the living room, and he could see that the sunglasses were nowhere near as dark as the ones he had worn in the hospital.

"Have a seat, sir. Can I get you something to drink?"

Mulder was being the gracious host. It was unnerving, but then they weren't on adversarial terms today.

"Thank you, no. I just stopped by to see how you're doing. Have you any idea how much--" He caught sight of the suitcase, and the phone book opened to taxicabs. He spun back around. "Agent Mulder, you're not thinking of going _home,_ are you?"

Mulder's entire posture changed, becoming the familiar mulish one he recognized from countless encounters in his office. "Yes, sir. I _am_ going home."

"And you haven't told Mrs. Scully. Otherwise she'd be driving you. Damn it, Mulder, you're not able to go home alone! You've still got the cast on; how do you expect to take care of yourself?"

Mulder shook his head, then froze, an expression of pain on his face. He groped blindly towards the chair on his left, and Skinner sprang forward to guide him to that chair, and ease him down into it. Mulder put his head against the high back of the chair, panting in obvious pain. After a couple of minutes during which Skinner hovered, unsure what to do and unwilling to say or do anything that might make things worse, Mulder's breathing slowed down, and he said, "I'm OK." After another couple of minutes he added, "It's going away. Whaddu know--the headaches actually are getting better." The smile that crossed his face was not his usual self-depreciating one. It was real pleasure.

Finally Mulder straightened up and looked at him. "Please, sir, you can sit down. Really. I'm OK now."

He didn't, staying right where he was. "Where's Mrs. Scully?"

Mulder didn't pretend to misunderstand his intentions. "In the back yard, working on her garden."

He nodded, then looked for the way through the house.

Mulder pointed with his casted right arm. "Through the dining room, the kitchen, and into the breakfast room. There's a couple of steps down, then the door is on the right."

He nodded and turned away.

Mrs. Scully was in the process of transplanting some kind of bush and didn't look up at the sound of the door opening. She said, "Fox, I'll be in in a few minutes. Or is it a phone call?" She finished tamping the soil down with the trowel, then leaned back onto her heels and wiped her forehead with the back of her wrist.

She reminded him so much of his own wife working in her garden that he simply stood and watched her.

The silence must have finally penetrated, because she was suddenly in motion, dropping the trowel, starting to get to her feet, looking his way, and calling anxiously, "Fox?!" Then she relaxed and smiled a hello at him. "Mr. Skinner. It's good to see you again.

"Fox is all right, isn't he? He doesn't normally even come into the kitchen; it's too bright, even with his darker sunglasses. That's why I was worried when I didn't hear anything."

He held the door for her. "He had one of his headaches." At the look of alarm that crossed her face, he quickly added, "Not too bad apparently. He said it was gone by the time I came for you."

She nodded. "He probably shook his head or bent over too quickly or something like that. Those headaches are getting much better. But the big ones . . .." She shook her head and didn't say anything more.

Skinner nodded to himself. Mulder was being as stubborn as usual. He had something he was planning to do, and no one was going to stop him from doing it.

There was a tiny half-bath next to the back door. Mrs. Scully stopped in there to wash her hands. Over the water, she asked, "Was there a particular reason you stopped by today?"

"I came to see how Mulder was doing; to find out when he thought he might come back to work." As she was drying her hands, he added, "He's planning on going home today."

The towel dropped unnoticed to the floor. She didn't breathe for the longest time, then she closed her eyes as total resignation swept over her. After another minute, she looked at him. "I suppose I should have known. He's so stubborn. He must be worried that I'm not getting enough sleep, taking care of him after the nightmares."

Now he was worried. "What nightmares? What are you talking about?"

She said, "I think that's Fox's choice to tell you," and led the way back into the kitchen. She stopped to pour herself a glass of iced tea. When she looked at him, he nodded. Then she poured a third one, from a separate pitcher, which she also handed to him, saying, "Fox's is decaffeinated." They went into the dining room, where she carefully closed the kitchen door behind her, blocking the bright sunlight from streaming in.

Mulder looked their way, then came over to join them. Skinner could hardly believe how steady he was on his feet. The last time he'd gone to the hospital, Mulder was still walking with a staff member holding onto the special belt around his waist. He no longer had the IV or the walker, but it was still obvious that neither he himself, nor the staff, trusted him to walk independently. Yet now he looked as confident as he normally did. If it weren't for the still-growing out hair, the fresh scar, and his sunglasses--and how much weight he'd lost, having been on a liquid diet for so long--you could think he was the same Mulder as before the accident.

Skinner leaned back in frustration. Mulder had been using phrases and single words for the last ten minutes, but that didn't seem to have slowed his arguments down. The man was too stubborn for his own good. If Agent Scully were here she could talk sense into him, but she had gone back to work on Tuesday, after recovering from exhaustion. With her temporary assignment, teaching and doing autopsies down at Quantico, she was too far away to be called for this conference. So he tried again.

"Agent Mulder, you can't cook, you can't do dishes or laundry, and you've already admitted you need Mrs. Scully's help to bathe. You can barely get dressed by yourself. You're still taking naps at least twice a day. You _can't _go home alone."

Mulder shoved his chair back and stalked out of the room.

He looked at Mrs. Scully. What had he said this time, that both of them hadn't said already, several times? She smiled and shook her head, but didn't say anything.

They sat in silence for a couple of minutes, waiting for Mulder to return. When he didn't, Skinner started to get up, to go see if something was wrong.

Mrs. Scully put a hand on his arm and shook her head. "Don't. He doesn't like being hovered over."

"But . . . the headaches--what if he . . .?"

She smiled, a gentle, sad smile. "It doesn't matter. He won't let me be that close. He won't hurt himself. As I said earlier, the small headaches aren't really that bad now. If he can't get somewhere to sit down, he rides them out where he is. As for the big headaches--well, he just curls up where he's standing, arms over his head, and sinks to the floor. I've found him that way several times, grunting in agony. Even in the bathroom he somehow protects his head when he goes down. Of course he takes the codeine when I offer it, but apparently he _can _cope without it. I went shopping one day and got trapped behind a major traffic accident on my way back. I was at least a couple of hours late. When I walked in, Fox was asleep on the living room floor. He said he felt fine. He got the headache almost as soon as I left, but he didn't know how long it lasted before he fell asleep."

He shook his head in wonderment. How in hell had Fox Mulder ever survived the attack in the first place? How in hell did he survive these headaches? How in hell was he ever going to make it back to his old life? Suddenly the much-too-expensive special accommodations that Workers' Comp. had insisted on before Mulder could return to work even part time seemed cheap at the price.

Then Mulder was back. He sat down and said, "Margaret, I _can't _stay here. I'm sorry. But the nightmares about Samantha's abduction are just too bad for me to tolerate any longer. I don't think they'll be as bad at home, and certainly not twice or three times a night. I'll figure out something for food; after all, it's still pretty much just mush." He looked at her and grinned, then added, "Besides, the cast is supposed to come off next week."

Now she shook her head. "Have you ever had a broken arm, Fox? I didn't think so. Dana broke her right arm when she was ten, trying to keep up with her brothers. When the cast came off, it actually hurt more for the first week or so, because all that support was gone. She didn't stop complaining about not being able to throw a softball or swing a bat for a month. So don't expect things to be easier just because the cast is off."

She was silent for several minutes before speaking again. "Fox? Will you let me come to your apartment? Every day? I won't presume to think you need me to sleep over, but I do think you need someone around during the day to help you."

Mulder looked like he was going to object, so Skinner put a hand on his arm to forestall him. "Agent Mulder, accept her offer. Or I'll call Dr. Carrington."

Mulder glared at him, but subsided. After a minute, he nodded and said, "All right. But you're _not _going to stay all day. You can mother me just as well in only a few hours a day, Margaret."

Her delighted laughter was a welcome relief after the tension of the past thirty-five minutes.

Now that that was finally settled, Skinner turned to his original purpose for visiting. "Agent Mulder, I've received Workers' Comp.'s final decision. You can't come back to work at Headquarters at this time. They feel it's too dangerous, especially for you to be downstairs alone in your office. However, they've agreed to let you work at Quantico, where there's a fully-equipped Infirmary. SAC Michael Elliot, of the Investigative Support Unit, says he can accommodate the working conditions Dr. Carrington and Workers' Comp. insist on. He'd be pleased to have you as a Profiler. If you're willing to do profiles until those restrictions are lifted, then you can come back to work. If you'd rather not--and I can understand that you might not want to, given how stressful your last few months there were--then you'll have to take indefinite disability leave. I wish I could offer you something better, but I'm constrained by Workers' Comp. as much as you are by your current physical condition."

This time when Mulder pushed back his chair and left the room, it was obvious he needed privacy to think that over. While they were waiting, Mrs. Scully and he talked, exchanging stories about Mulder and Scully, from his point of view, and Fox and Dana, from her point of view. They had drifted gradually to stories about her life as a Navy wife and his time as a Marine before Mulder came back.

All he did was nod.


	3. Chapter 3

**Investigative Support Unit**   
** FBI Academy**   
** Quantico, Virginia**   
** 11:00 a.m., August 29**

Mulder carefully sat up on the side of the bed in his darkened office. He'd been an idiot yesterday: because he felt so good, he'd worked two three-hour stretches, with one long break for lunch, his daily walk, and a nap. Today he was paying the price-- he'd been at work barely an hour when the headache started leaping, not creeping, up the pain scale. Since the only thing he'd found that was guaranteed to stop a headache was to take some codeine and a nap before things got too bad, he'd quit, and now, about two hours later, he finally felt well enough to get up again. Which wasn't to say that the headache was _gone_, just that it was down to "tolerable".

As he put on his sunglasses and turned up the lights, he wondered again just how much money the Bureau had paid for the adaptations to this private office. First there was the simple fact that he had a large private office--someone important had been kicked out of here. The bed would have been free--just bring one over from the Infirmary or the Marine Base. But the special adjustable intensity glare- and flicker-free lighting, the 21" computer monitor and state of the art software so that he could enlarge everything without losing clarity, the scanner and text-to-speech hardware and software normally used by the blind for when he was seeing double, and lastly, the always-open intercom so his co- workers could hear if he got in trouble and the "panic button" to summon help from the Infirmary--those must have set them back a pretty penny.

On the other hand, he _was_ back at work, had been for three weeks, and already he'd pulled his first "Spooky" Mulder act, one which was sure to earn him a commendation, if the police in half the country had any say in the matter.

Michael Elliot, the Senior Agent in Charge here, had obviously read his record from when he worked under Patterson because he'd been given the really tough cases right from the start. The ones with no apparent connecting features, the ones with copy-cat killers muddling up the territory, and the ones where the existing profile still left too many suspects.

Then there had been the thirty-seven killings in twelve states over nine years that had the police tearing their collective hair out. The killings were as similar as if a group of men had planned them together, then dispersed and started taking turns killing. But the four profiles for four separate killers that the FBI had come up with over the years had led nowhere. The earliest of those useless profiles was his.

This time, _he_ had written the advisory requesting information on killings with any of three distinct features. That had brought in sixteen more killings so far, for a total of fifty-three dead men, women, and children in twenty-one states and three Canadian provinces, including the three identical ones from opposite ends of the country and all within twenty-four hours: men, about twenty-five years old, blond--and drunk.

_He_ had made the leap to someone with his own jet. Someone who'd lost three people close to him, possibly a wife and children or grandchildren, to a drunk driver. Then it had been a matter of narrowing it down, and over the weekend the computerized search of private jet flight plans had finally paid off--a "filthy rich" forcibly-retired CEO, who'd been through a messy divorce nine years ago, with on-going legal battles. A man who had lost his second family when a drunk driver killed his new wife and their twin sons--and himself--while she was driving them to the doctor for their six-month check-ups.

The killings were his "stress reliever". Whenever things got really bad, he'd spin a compass to get his exact navigational heading and throw dice to determine how long he'd fly in that direction. Then he'd file a flight plan for the nearest airport, land, kill someone, and return home. _That_ was the reason there was no pattern to the where, when, why, or who, only to the how.

His new colleagues had resurrected "Spooky", this time as a term of respect, not derision, and for the first time since he'd earned that nickname when he was a trainee at the Academy he actually felt proud of it. Of course, it didn't hurt that SAC Elliot had insisted on taking him out to dinner on Tuesday to celebrate the arrest, and had _not _told him that the rest of the unit and Scully, Margaret, and Mr. Skinner would also be there. He didn't even care--too much--that he put the kibosh on the celebration by having a headache so bad he actually passed out at the restaurant, and then had to spend Wednesday recovering at Margaret's house.

Then had come yesterday, when he'd felt so good he'd messed things up for today.

He'd been working for another forty-five minutes on his newest case, getting more and more frustrated at the tantalizing hints his subconscious was coming up with, when his boss came in.

"Agent Mulder, are you getting anywhere on that new one?" Mike Elliot paused at the doorway, not bothering to come in. "I've got Detective Ivey on hold on my phone. I won't inflict him on you. He's an obnoxious SOB who doesn't want our help. His boss insisted he call us in on the case. If you can't come up with anything, I'll drop the case--and him."

Mulder leaned back, closed his eyes, and in a new habit, gently rubbed the long scar on his right temple. There was a constant background ache in the area where the fractures had been, completely separate from the totally-incapacitating headaches he still got three or four times a week. When he got totally frustrated, like he was on this case, he could predict, almost to the minute, when a headache would strike.

Without opening his eyes, he said, "There's _something_ I'm not seeing, sir. It's here in the crime reports, but I can't put it all together. However, if I don't quit for lunch now, the codeine I took earlier won't be enough, and you'll have to call Scully and tell her I'm back in the Infirmary again."

"All right. Go on; I'll join you after I placate Ivey."

* * *

**FBI Academy Cafeteria**   
** 12:11 p.m.**

"It's something to do with the location. Not the places where he leaves the bones and entrails, but where he's doing the killing. I kept getting these flashes of a big room, with lots of metal tables, and lots of bodies, and blood, and . . .." Mulder trailed off and stared blankly across the crowded cafeteria, his decaffeinated iced tea forgotten in mid-air.

"Agent Mulder, you know you're not supposed to talk about work at lunch." Mike Elliot reached across the table and tried to take the drink from him. It didn't work, and Mulder startled back to awareness.

"What did y--?"

Mulder's hand clenched convulsively, crushing the paper cup and causing tea and crushed ice to spew everywhere. His face went ashen and he started to pant like he did when one of his bad headaches struck. But this time, instead of him groaning in agony and putting his head down on the nearest surface while someone got his codeine pills, *this* time his eyes stayed open, and then, bonelessly limp, he tumbled sideways out of his chair. The "crack" as the left side of his head hit the floor was enough to stop every conversation in the room, and bring people literally running to help.

Mike shoved his chair back and dropped to all fours next to the crumpled figure, one hand scrabbling for the gray sunglasses that had fallen off when Mulder fell over. But Mulder didn't even seem to know they were gone. His panting had slowed a bit, and his open eyes darted from side to side as if he was looking at something. He didn't respond when Mike called his name, so Mike did what everyone in the ISU had been instructed to do if Mulder should pass out--keep noise to a minimum, try to keep people away, and have someone call the infirmary, while making sure nothing else happened to him.

He reached out and snatched the pant leg of the trainee who was going for help. "Wait! Tell them I think he had a seizure this time. They need to call Agent Scully immediately, because she has his doctor's phone numbers."

* * *

**Georgetown University Medical Center**   
** Room 622**   
** 4:59 a.m., September 1**

"Mulder, it's OK. They caught him. You can relax. It's OK, Mulder, you told us. The police were waiting for him. They caught him half an hour ago. The victim is safe."

There was a pause, then Scully started again. Her voice sounded hoarse, and worried. He needed to know why, so he started to ask what she was talking about. That's when he realized it hurt to talk--his throat felt like he'd been talking non-stop for days.

"Sc . . . Scully . . . what--"

"Mulder! Thank God!" Her hands took his right one and squeezed gently before releasing him. "I'm going to the nurses' station for just a minute. Dr. Carrington wanted to be called as soon as you were rational." Her footsteps receded.

Rational? Rational!? What in heaven's name had happened to him? He didn't have a headache, didn't really hurt anywhere except his throat, just the stiffness that suggested he'd been in this hospital bed a least a full day. He started to stretch, then froze as he felt the soft wrist restraints and an NG tube in his nose. Shit. Of all the various tubes hospitals used, he hated the feeding tubes the most. Foley catheters might be embarrassing and uncomfortable, but naso-gastric tubes, going down or coming out, were guaranteed to make him vomit.

He opened his eyes carefully in case the light was too bright, took a look around the generic hospital room, and decided to sit up. The bed controls, including the nurse's call button, were placed where he couldn't reach them. Shit, shit, shit. Well, Scully would be back in a couple of minutes, and she'd untie him.

The clock said 5:00, and the amount of light coming into the room meant it was early morning, not late afternoon. The calendar on the bulletin board said the 1st, so he'd been here nearly three days. The last thing he remembered was--

Mulder was half-sitting up, vomiting convulsively over himself and the bed, when Scully stepped back in the room. She turned around, yelled, "Room 622, STAT!", and ran for the bed. She yanked the quick-release knot on his left wrist restraint, grabbed the wastebasket and shoved it in front of his face, dashed to the other side of the bed to release his other wrist, and then went to shut off the feeding pump that was still putting Ensure into his stomach.

One nurse was already doing that while another was at the bed controls, bringing the head of the bed up to support him while he finished vomiting. There was nothing else she could do, so she stepped out of the way and let the hospital staff do their jobs.

He caught snatches of what the people around him were doing, in between his vomiting and shivering and the God-awful scenes of the murder and the headache that kept coming and going, but never got bad enough to put him out of his misery. He knew he was a fetal ball when they lifted him out of the filthy bed, bathed him, and put him back in a clean bed. He couldn't help it; all the strength he could muster was barely enough to keep him from screaming himself into a bed on the psych ward.

He thought it was now about half an hour later, but he couldn't be sure, and he knew if he opened his eyes to check, he'd start vomiting again. He ignored everything that the nurses and doctor asked him because he couldn't spare the energy to reply. Scully would understand; all he'd have to say is 'profile', and she would immediately realize that he must have been remembering.

But it was worse than that, much worse. No matter how horrible things had gotten when he was trying to do a profile, he had _always_ known where "he" ended and "the killer" began. Even if that line was so thin it would only take one tiny mis-step to cross over, there had been that line. But this time-- _This_ time he'd _been_ the killer. He didn't know his name, or where he lived, or anything like that, but he _knew_ the slaughterhouse he had worked in, _knew_ at which table he'd worked, butchering the steers, and he could remember the exact feel of the freshly sharpened butcher knife cutting through the still living throat of his third victim. He could see the way she was hog-tied and how she swayed from side to side as her freshly slaughtered body dangled from the hook and overhead conveyer belt that carried her over to his table. He could feel--not imagine, _feel_ in the muscles of his arms and back--exactly how little Mandy Frasier weighed compared to the steers; it was so easy to flip her free of the hook, and turn her this way and that on the table while he--

He started heaving again, but nothing came up, not even bile, and it hurt. God, it hurt; his stomach hurt, his mouth and throat burned from the previous vomiting, his muscles were cramping from the overwork, and the headache would _not _let up. For once he prayed for a headache to actually worsen, to overwhelm him, to let him collapse into unconsciousness.

"What the _hell _do you people think you're doing, just standing around?!"

Scully was obviously furious. He could hear it in her voice, could picture her standing there, hands on hips--

All he had to do was turn his head, open his eyes, and Scully would replace the abattoir he was seeing.

He'd barely slitted his eyes open when fingers pried his left eye further open, and a bright light stabbed straight through his eye and into his brain. He welcomed the light and pain and let them carry him away.

* * *

**4:10 p.m., September 2**

He recognized the dry mouth and foot-sloggingly thick "stuff" slowing his thoughts down: Compazine for the vomiting. The fact that the medicine was also a potent anti-psychotic, capable of keeping the slaughterhouse far, far away, was a blessing he was sure the doctor hadn't thought of when he or she ordered it. The afternoon cartoons someone had put on the TV were just about his speed right now, unless he wanted to make the extra effort to concentrate.

"I see you're finally awake, Mulder. Are you up to answering questions?" The voice was Dr. Carrington's.

He blinked and looked over at her and then blinked again in surprise. He barely recognized her. She'd cut her hair since his last check-up on August 15. It made her look closer to her real age, especially with the grey hair now showing at her roots, but he missed the myriad of long black braids, each tipped with a different-colored bead.

"Yeah." It came out slurred; he cleared his throat, drank most of the glass of water she helped him hold, and tried again, taking care to enunciate clearly. "Thanks. For. The. Compazine. It was just. What I needed. To stop. Remembering."

A bemused smile crossed her face and then she shook her head. "How did you--?"

He smiled back. "I've taken it before. But it's been years--when I was in college there was a pretty rough flu going around."

Dr. Carrington nodded. "That was quite a while ago, wasn't it? But you still remember what it feels like. Obviously, _your _eidetic memory is more than the usual visual or auditory eidetic memory." She seemed to reach a decision, because she pulled a chair over, sat down, swung his over-bed table in front of her, and opened his chart so she could take notes. She was installed for the duration, and he had a horrible suspicion he knew what she was going to ask.

"It's now around 4:15 on the 2nd. You've been vomiting almost continuously since you 'woke up' yesterday morning. I tried just about everything in the Pharmacopeia before ordering the Compazine. I hadn't wanted to give you a neuroleptic because you had no overt psychotic symptoms. Now you're telling me that's exactly what you needed. So you tell me: what happened?"

Oh, God. He didn't want to answer that question. It would be hard enough trying to explain to Scully, or Mike Elliot, or any of the other agents who knew what profiling was like. And she was absolutely certain he remembered, so he couldn't fudge--or could he?

He looked her directly in the eyes and said, "I can't tell you, because it's confidential."

She put down her pen. "Bullshit."

He was so shocked he could feel his jaw drop. Doctors didn't talk that way to their patients.

"Dana warned me you wouldn't want to talk about it, so here's your incentive: you're looking at an immediate medical retirement from Field Agent status because, unless you can convince me otherwise, five days ago you had a seizure as a direct result of your head injury, and you're going to be on anti-seizure medication for the rest of your life. On top of that, based on what you said about the Compazine, as soon as we're done talking I'm ordering a stat psychiatric consult." She sat back in the chair and crossed her arms, daring him to not answer.

This time he couldn't look at her. He scratched around the IV in the back of his right hand, and the tiny scab from where he must have had an IV in his left hand, and stared past her out the window even though there was nothing but blue sky to look at, and adjusted his covers, and used the bed controls so he was sitting all the way up, and drank some more water, and adjusted the covers again.

She out-sat him.

Eventually he ran out of excuses and started talking. "I did _not_ have a seizure. I did not lose consciousness, not even when I was falling out of the chair in the cafeteria. I remember everything, except for when I was sedated for the trip here, when I was out yesterday morning, and then things have been fuzzy since the Compazine started working. I won't tell you what I . . . experienced, but I will tell you it has to do with the way I do profiles. It was just . . . a lot more intense than what usually happens. I was frustrated, and the headache was building again, and then I had this . . . this . . . insight that was literally overwhelming."

"That doesn't explain your behavior in the Infirmary at Quantico or for three days and nights here in the hospital. You were so focused on going to catch that killer _right now_ that you had to be restrained. You couldn't answer questions, you couldn't follow directions, you couldn't even sit still for more than five minutes at a time. That is not the behavior of someone who is in control of himself."

He sighed. How could he explain? "How could I answer the Agents' questions, when I didn't have the answers they wanted? What I knew was hows and wheres, not names or places or upcoming dates. I've never been to the city where the killings took place, but if you took me there and drove me around, I would _know_ the out-of- business slaughterhouse he did his butchering at. I could show you the exact table where he did his bloody work, and, if you laid out his knives in front of me, I could pick them up, one by one, and tell you which ones he had used on Amanda Jean Frasier.

"And the frustration of _not _being able to explain, of being prevented from going, when I knew I could stop this killer--I had a headache just this side of passing out the entire time. It was a Catch 22: if I could have asked for Demerol for the headache, I would have been able to relax enough to . . . to . . . 'attend' to you people. But I couldn't relax enough to be able to say I needed the Demerol. All I could do was try to get someone to understand that I could stop the killer."

There was a long silence, at least five minutes, while Dr. Carrington thought about what he'd said. Finally she said, "I'd still like you to talk to a psychiatrist. The vomiting was a classic somatization of your feelings--you couldn't stomach the memories, so you vomited in an attempt to get rid of them. But with your eidetic memory, you can't forget, so . . .."

She didn't bother finishing. If he didn't deal with it, he would be caught in a truly vicious circle.

He was finally able to smile at something. "You forget, Doctor, I'm used to dealing with horrible memories. I did profiles in the Investigative Support Unit for more than three years, and my regular assignment has things just as horrible, only in different ways. The problem this time was the intensity of the insight and the headache that I couldn't get around. With the help of the Compazine, I've already started to deal with it. If necessary, you can order another dose, to sustain the emotional distance I need while I finish--" He hadn't ever found words to explain how he "forgot" things he didn't want to remember. "Doing whatever I do so I'm not tripping over bad memories every time I turn around."

There was another long silence before she answered. "I'm still calling in Dr. Kennedy for the psychiatric consult. You'll have to convince him of the need for a second dose. But I won't make it a stat order; he'll come sometime tomorrow."

"Give me forty-ei--"

"NO. I'm sorry, Mr. Mulder, but Workers' Comp. won't let me keep you that long, now that you're stable and we know what happened to you. And once you're discharged, you're required to see one of their physicians before you can see a psychiatrist. If you should need more Compazine, that process will certainly take too long."


	4. Chapter 4

**Mulder's Apartment**   
** 1:37 p.m., September 6**

He was so exhausted by the time he reached his apartment door that his hands were trembling. Trembling, _not_ tremor, he told himself. He hadn't had anywhere near enough Compazine for side effects, right? Right. He must just be getting old. He couldn't blame the exhaustion on being out of shape in general, because Dr. Carrington had given him the OK to resume gentle exercise back in mid-August, and he'd worked his way up to walking three miles before this recent . . . "unpleasantness". Six days in the hospital couldn't possibly have erased all that. But today he'd completely run out of steam after only one mile, leaving him to somehow walk that same distance home because he'd forgotten-- forgotten!--to take money or a credit card. He was fumbling, trying to get the key in the lock, when the door was pulled open and he almost staggered right into Scully.

"Where the hell have you been, Mulder? You didn't answer your phone for so long I came over to see if you were all right. Then I find you're not here! I was getting ready to put an APB out on you."

Scully in her "righteous indignation" mood was not something he could deal with right now. He sidestepped her and said, "Out walking, OK? So sue me. Neither Dr. Kennedy nor Dr. Carrington said I couldn't. Right now I'm going to take a shower. You can stick around and be helpful by making coffee for yourself and iced tea for me for when I get out, or you can leave now. But whichever it is, make up your mind quick, or you're going to get an eyeful." With that, he stripped off the sweat-soaked tee- shirt. Just before his head disappeared inside the shirt, he caught a glimpse of Scully staring at him in slack-jawed shock.

When he came out of the bathroom ten minutes later, he went directly to the kitchen, put one of the codeine pills as far back in his mouth as he could and washed it down with half of the glass of tea that was waiting for him. It had only taken once in the hospital to teach him that tossing his pills back was a guaranteed way to immediately pass out in agony. Then it was time to fumble in the refrigerator for something to keep his stomach happy.

Scully pulled the door out of his hand. "Go lie down, Mulder. I'll put something together."

He couldn't nod, so he just headed for the couch. With his eyes closed behind his sunglasses, and him concentrating on trying to relax so his blood pressure would stay down instead of rising in response to his pain, it was a surprise when Scully put a sandwich in his hand. The first bite told him it was turkey, mustard, and lettuce on rye, with the tomato left off as a potentially drippy disaster. All were foods she bought for him while he was seeing Dr. Kennedy yesterday, talking about how he was doing and getting his third dose of Compazine.

Thank God that third dose seemed to be working. Kennedy had warned him that if the third dose didn't work, he'd be out of the FBI permanently, because they both knew that sooner or later he'd try suicide rather than live through that memory yet again.

Maybe that would be the deciding factor in allowing him to "forget" most of that obscenity with Mark Huber's third victim. If he had to retire, he would never again work alongside Scully. He wouldn't be able to continue looking for Samantha; his disability check would be nowhere near enough for that. What kind of work could he do, anyway? He'd never practiced as a psychologist; he'd been recruited by the FBI right after his internship. Besides, who would hire someone who was 100% guaranteed to attempt suicide at some unknown point in the future?

He shuddered. He'd never thought about suicide before, and now it was staring him in the face.

"Mulder, are you all right?"

Scully's voice and Scully's hand on his arm and Scully's perfume. He concentrated on those till he was sure his voice would be steady. "Yeah." He sat up carefully and faced her. "The codeine'll start working any time now. Thanks for the sandwich."

"That's not what I was asking. Do you need me to call Dr. Kennedy? Are you still having flashbacks?"

"No, nothing like that. Just someone walking over my grave."

"That's not funny, Mulder."

There was mutually-embarrassed silence long enough for him to finish the sandwich and the rest of the tea, and for her to take his dishes back into the kitchen. When she came out, he could tell she was still upset, but the topic she chose surprised him.

"You're having resting tremors. Have you called Dr. Kennedy?" She pointed to his right hand, shaking slightly on the armrest of the couch.

He still couldn't chance shaking his head, so he had to come right out and say it. "No. I'm not going to, either. I won't need any more Compazine, and it isn't going to happen again anyway, so what does it matter? They'll go away." [I hope.]

"Mulder, you have to tell him. That's a very serious side-effect for someone who's only had three doses, especially when those doses were spaced over four days, and they were the amount given for vomiting, not for psychotic behavior or hallucinations." She went to the coffee table, sat on it, and took his hands. "Mulder, you _have_ to tell him. If you don't, I'll have to. Not because I don't believe they'll disappear, but he has to put it in your medical record. God forbid you should ever again need an anti- psychotic, but if you're so sensitive to Compazine that you're already showing pseudo-Parkinsonism, then you could head straight for the even more serious side-effects if you should be given any of the drugs in the same class.

"Mulder, you _know_ this. You must have studied the drugs while you were at Oxford. Or you certainly would have chosen to do the research on your own, as soon has you started your internship. Your insatiable curiosity would demand it."

He slid far enough forward so that he could--carefully--tilt his head to rest it on the back of the couch and stare up at the ceiling. "Scully, you have an absolute genius for throwing my guilt right back at me, y'know? How do you _do_ that?"

"Practice. Lots of practice. But you haven't answered me." She moved to the couch; he felt it dip on his left side.

"Yeah, we studied the various drugs a bit. I wasn't that interested at Oxford because it was just an intellectual exercise, but my supervisor for my clinical internship year assigned me to follow a dozen new admits, documenting how different people with the same diagnosis reacted to the same drugs. I got really interested then and did a lot of research on my own.

"So I do know that I'm abnormally sensitive to Compazine, and yes, I should have called Kennedy first thing this morning when I noticed the tremor. I just didn't want to, Scully." He sat up then and turned so he was facing her, mirroring her posture of one leg up on the cushion. "I've been in the hospital three times in the past--" he paused while he counted, "eighty-two days, for a total of forty-five days and some odd hours. That's more time in the hospital than out. Can you blame me for not wanting to mention it? I was afraid he'd call Dr. Carrington and they'd decide to stick me right back in, to be sure it wasn't brain damage that was just now showing up."

Scully startled at that; she must not have thought of that possibility. She said, very quietly, "Oh." After a pause she added, "I'll respect your wishes if you promise to call him when the tremors are gone."

The headache was finally receding, so he could carefully nod. "I'll be calling him Monday anyway, to tell him officially that this third dose worked. I'll tell him about the tremors then, because they'll either be the same, which would mean I really would have to go back in, or they'll already be fading, in which case I can tell him that." He reached out to wiggle her sneakered right foot that was dangling off the edge of the seat. "Will that satisfy you, _Dr_. Scully?"

She didn't pull her foot away; instead she gently swatted his hand away. "Completely, _Mr_. Mulder.

"Now for the real reason I came over." She got up, pulled a diskette out of her purse, went to turn on his computer, and stopped. "Mulder, I don't even know--can you use your own computer yet?"

He didn't bother getting up. "No. I had Frohike install the special software I use at work, but this monitor's too small. When I've got everything large enough to see easily, then I get a headache or double vision from the constant panning back and forth to see the whole page. TV's not the same because I'm so much farther back, and I don't have to pay that close attention. So either leave the diskette for me to take to work Monday or just tell me what's on it."

She nodded and put the diskette on the desk. Then she stayed there as if for some reason she needed distance from him. "I did some research while you were in the hospital this last time. I don't want to cause you any more pain, but if we're going to talk about this then I'm going to have to make some pretty specific references to things you said. Can you handle that?"

His attention already piqued, he said, "We won't know till we try it. What did I say that got you so intrigued that you did research?"

"It's more a matter of what you didn't say. You didn't name the killer. You didn't name the specific victim you'd . . . homed in on. You didn't name the out-of-business company that had owned that slaughterhouse or give us the address. But you described what Mark Huber did to Amanda Jean Frasier so accurately that the police had no trouble identifying the correct building. They identified which table Huber--"

Mulder bolted for the toilet. Scully was there with a glass of cold water and a wet washcloth when he was done. He used them, still on the floor, and then held onto her to get up and walk back to the living room.

Once on the couch, with her hovering right over him, he said, "I'll be all right. That wasn't a flashback. Just the sudden recollection of everything I said to Agent Tompkins. So you can skip all that and cut straight to what you wanted to tell me." She still looked very worried, so he repeated himself. "Scully. Go sit down. I'm OK. I'm not going to hare out on you. The Compazine is working."

Finally she nodded. This time, however, she pulled the desk chair over to the couch. "Mulder, you couldn't know what you knew. What you did wasn't profiling. It wasn't your 'spooky' ability to get inside some killer's head. Even you aren't _that_ good.

"The research I did suggests that certain types of brain damage can cause--God, Mulder, I feel so weird. I'm supposed to be the one who keeps you grounded."

She looked so out of her depths that he smiled. "You do, Scully, believe me. If you found something to shake your beliefs without seeing it personally, then it's got to be pretty strong evidence. What did you find?"

She took a deep breath and said. "But I did see it myself, so to speak; I heard your voice on the tape telling Tompkins things that there's no possible way you could know. That's what shook me so badly I had to do the research. Mulder, I think you've developed ESP."

After an second of stunned silence, he was howling with laughter. It felt wonderful to have something to laugh about after all the pain he'd been through these past three months. It felt wonderful right up until the instant that a full-blown headache struck. After that it was all he could do to stay conscious. At some point the headache got lost in the familiar narcotic haze, and he realized that Scully had come prepared--this was morphine, not more codeine.

The smell of Margaret's home-made spaghetti sauce was a delicious thing to wake up to. He decided she should bottle the sauce; it would out-sell the stuff in the stores 10-1. He heard the timer "ding" and then footsteps that had to be Scully's, not Margaret's. "I didn't know you used your mother's recipe, Scully."

The footsteps turned around and came back toward him. "You're awake. How do you feel?"

He waggled a hand back and forth in her general direction without bothering to open his eyes. "The usual. In about ten minutes I'll be awake enough to feed myself without making a mess. Did you time things that specifically, or was the timer for something other than the spaghetti?"

"It's for the last veggies to be added to the sauce. I don't want them to turn into mush, and I wasn't sure I'd check my watch. The book I'm reading is really interesting. If you're sure you're awake, I'll go add them."

He carefully pushed up to sitting, letting the blanket she must have put over him fall aside by itself. "I'm awake. How come you never fed me Margaret's recipe before? I've eaten spaghetti at your place often enough."

"I don't normally have the time. This takes at least four hours. I usually just doctor the Prego Garden Variety, since it's lowest in sodium." She turned back to the kitchen.

He heard the defensiveness in her voice and immediately moved to placate her. "Hey, I'm not complaining. I just eat it the way it comes. It never occurred to me that you could make the store- bought stuff taste so much like home-made. Will you give me the recipe? For the Prego, not Margaret's. I'm not ready to start investing four hours in spaghetti sauce, no matter how good it is."

A snort of amusement came from the kitchen, but no confirmation. He got up to see what was so funny, waiting by the couch till he was sure his blood pressure wasn't going to bottom out. Ever since the hospital staff had realized that a ten-point rise in his blood pressure might trigger a headache, and that a twenty- point rise was sure to, he'd been on medication to keep his blood pressure very low. He didn't object to the medicine because the frequency of headaches had taken an immediate nose dive. What he did object to was the postural hypotension that caused him to grey-out if he sat up or stood up too quickly after he'd been lying down a while.

Once in the kitchen, he asked, "You going to clue me in to what's so funny?"

Scully finished rinsing her hands off. "You, Mulder. As if you'd even spend the one hour it takes to fix the Prego. I know your cooking habits, and they're as bad as your eating habits."

There wasn't anything to say to that, so he turned to the cupboard and got out plates, glasses and silverware. "You want wine? I've still got a little bit of what I bought to celebrate the across the board raises we got in January." At her nod, he put a wine glass at her plate and got the bottle out of the cupboard over the refrigerator. "How much longer? Do I have time to chill the wine?"

"I just started the water for the spaghetti and we've still got the salad to make." She crossed in front him to get to the refrigerator, then handed him the entire vegetable bin in exchange for the wine. "Here. You take care of rinsing everything and tearing the lettuce. I'll cut things up."

He smiled. "Yes, Mother. I am old enough to use a knife, you know."

"Not right after morphine, Mulder, and you know it. And certainly not morphine on top of tremors." She took the tomato and the green and yellow bell peppers he held out, pointing with the knife into the bin. "Don't forget the celery. You may not like it in salad, but I do. I'll cut some up and put it aside."

After that, it was their typical eat-a-meal-while-discussing-a- case, only this time Scully really seemed to believe he was the case. It took him two hours, using examples going back as far as the first profile he'd ever written, to get her to concede that he could have visualized a generic slaughterhouse well enough to make it seem like he'd described the real one. He had no trouble convincing her that he could make the leap to a slaughterhouse in the first place; in hindsight, the bones of all five of Huber's victims bore the unmistakable marks of careful butchering, the kind that's done by a professional not wanting to waste any meat.

But he knew that what he was actually doing was convincing himself. Because if it really was ESP, then why was he too afraid of the pain that accompanied it to try to find Samantha? Had his search for her fallen victim to the same carjacker who nearly killed him? Or was he afraid he'd hook into someone in the act of murdering her? That was a possibility he couldn't face.

* * *

**FBI Academy Cafeteria**   
** 12:53 p.m., October 21**

"Scully, I need a favor." Mulder leaned forward, putting on his best puppy-dog look, the one that made her shake her head in exasperation--but always got results.

She didn't look up; her knife and fork didn't falter in cutting the chicken strips in her salad into bite-size pieces. "I'm _not_ driving you to look at another supposed UFO site on our off- time."

"No, this is work related, but you'll have to take the whole afternoon off."

Her fork paused in mid-air, then went back down to her plate. He could practically see the wheels turning in her head. "Isabelle-- Dr. Carrington called you about your latest test results."

He grinned a huge grin back at her. Early on he'd asked her to sit in during his check-ups because his improvements, aside from the decreasing frequency and intensity of his headaches, and his now-gone double vision, were generally subtle things that Dr. Carrington saw, but that he wasn't even aware were happening. Scully was his interpreter--she could ask doctor-type questions and then turn around and explain things in ways that made sense to him. So she ought to be able to figure this one out very easily.

"You can drive again!"

He forestalled her impulsive hug. "No, it's not quite that simple. I have to pass some kind of driving assessment before Dr. Carrington will sign the release for me to take to the DMV. My appointment is at the hospital next week Friday, at one o'clock. She warned me that it'll last at least three hours. Assuming I pass all the regular tests, they'll try to stress me to the point of triggering a headache severe enough that I lose my concentration."

* * *

**Georgetown University Medical Center**   
** 12:45 p.m., October 31**

"Mulder, _please _get out of the car. You're the one who said we had to be here early, for out-patient registration." Scully was getting increasingly worried. The Mulder sitting in her car was disturbingly close to the Mulder she remembered from the case last year that he'd filed under "Gargoyle". Tad, one of the Profilers he worked with, had pulled her aside before they left, warning her that Mulder was really upset about his newest case, the one he'd gotten yesterday. He'd said Mulder was as obsessed as he'd ever seen him from their days together in Violent Crimes.

She could believe it. Mulder had been late this morning, so late that she finally went up to his apartment, finding him pacing his living room with his coat on. When she'd gone to get him for this appointment, she could see that he was wearing the same clothes he'd had on yesterday. Had he ever bothered to take his coat off? Had he ever lain down? She suspected not. He hadn't shaved, Tad had said he'd skipped taking an early lunch, and she herself knew he hadn't eaten breakfast. She wondered if he'd even eaten dinner last night. She also wondered if he would be able to handle this driving evaluation. He'd said that they would try to stress him enough to trigger a headache. "Well," she muttered to herself, as she took his arm and steered him through the parking lot and in the door to the out-patient clinics, "if it's stress they want, it's stress they'll get. He's already 90% stressed out."

He settled down during the registration process, filling out the forms and handling the questions about the Workers' Comp. coverage with no problems. Then, while they sat in the Occupational Therapy Department waiting room, he seemed totally fascinated by the glimpses they caught of the various patients and their different treatments.

By the time he was called, Mulder was, she judged, only about 50% stressed. She just hoped he could focus enough for whatever the tests were. He would *not* be happy if he failed before they even started.

They wouldn't let her watch. After he left, the receptionist thought to give her a booklet explaining the various parts of the driving assessment and their purposes. She read through that in about ninety seconds--it was written in layman's terms. With a sigh of exasperation, she pulled out the computer and files she'd brought along to keep her busy. She hated working with the computer in her lap, and especially hated trying to do it in chairs that were just tall enough she had to be on toe-tip if she didn't want her feet to dangle like a child's.

The Code Blue phone call the receptionist made brought her surging to her feet and over to the desk. "I'm a doctor; tell me where to go."

The flustered receptionist pointed to her left, saying, "All the way to the end. The Driv--"

She didn't wait, taking off at a run. The stress had been too much; it *had* triggered one of his headaches, and the therapist thought it was something worse. And Mulder hadn't carried codeine pills for a month now. Damn!

She skidded to a stop in front of the door and pushed it open, listening for the distinctive grunts of agony he made; while he had still been in the hospital she had learned to distinguish between a codeine-pill headache and an IV-morphine headache. There was no grunting.

Oh, God, he'd passed out. He hadn't had a headache that bad since August. No wonder they'd called a Code Blue! They must have thought he'd stroked or had a heart attack.

Only Mulder wasn't unconscious on the floor. Two harried-looking women were actually sitting on him, trying to keep him lying down. He had an eye that was already swelling shut, and she thought she saw a nasty-looking scrape on his right hand. Whatever he was looking at wasn't in this room, he wasn't saying anything, and he wasn't exactly fighting the women, he was just trying desperately to get up and go to that place only he saw.

Holy Mary, Mother of God. He'd done again whatever it was that he'd done in August--made some sort of unconscious intuitive leap, and figured out where a killer did his bloody work.

She sagged against the wall, too stunned for the moment to move forward to help.

The slamming of the door against the wall as the Code Blue team finally came charging in brought her back into focus. She jumped forward, putting herself directly in front of them, so they'd have to stop or run her down. "DON'T TOUCH HIM! We need Dr. Isabelle Carrington, his neurosurgeon, and IV morphine, stat! He can't tell us right now, but I can guarantee he's got a ferocious headache."

She knew they didn't have to listen to her; they wouldn't recognize her as a staff physician. All she could hope for was that the authority in her voice and manner would slow them down long enough for her to explain.

It did--or the fact that Mulder obviously wasn't in need of CPR stopped them. When team leader reminded her they didn't carry morphine, she felt her knees start to give. Mulder was in agony and there was nothing she could do to help him until Isabelle came. But she had to do _something_; she couldn't just leave him there on the floor. Maybe she could get him to relax, to realize that she was there and could help him.

She turned to Mulder again, trying to find somewhere to stand where he would be sure to see her. There wasn't anywhere. She'd have to trade places with the person sitting on his chest. She stopped the resuscitation team before they could leave. "Please wait. I need you to hold him still while I trade places with you," she tapped the young woman sitting on his chest on the shoulder, "so he can see me when I try to calm him down. And someone please call his office--that's 1-703-555-3481, extension 2204. Tell whomever answers it's an emergency. Dr. Scully needs to know what case Mulder was working on that's got him so stressed. They'll know what I mean. I need the names of all the victims, and the cities. That's enough to start with."

The head of the team, a hospital physician, hesitated and looked down. Mulder was still making his determined but ineffectual attempts to get up and it was obvious the two women on him were tiring. He nodded, adding, "Jared, call the pharmacy. I need a syringe of morphine, STAT."

The doctor glanced at her and she told him the dose, seeing his eyes widen in surprise at the amount. She wanted to yell at him, tell him to hurry, but she made herself say calmly, "Yes, that much. I want him completely unconscious. It's the fastest way to stop the headache. He'll wake up in about four hours and be fine."

The doctor nodded at Jared and the rest of the team, releasing them to help her. One person followed Jared outside, presumably to find another phone to page Isabelle and then call Quantico, and the other two followed the doctor toward Mulder, aligning themselves where they could hold him still.

It was a total fiasco. Mulder panicked when he saw three more people reaching toward him, and in one explosive move shrugged the two OTs off and got to his feet. He started running toward the open door immediately, and since she was the only person still standing, the best way Scully could think of to stop him was a flying tackle.

They crashed to the floor, Scully hanging on to his legs with all her strength, in case he tried to get up again. He didn't, though. He "oofed" as the air was knocked out of him, then curled up, grabbing his head and _finally _making the short, high- pitched grunts of agony that signaled his worst headaches.

She felt hands pulling her away, and let go. The Code Blue team grabbed Mulder, pulling his arms down so they could start an IV. Almost as soon as they had it in place, a pharmacist was there with the morphine. By the time Mulder was sliding into pain-free unconsciousness, Dr. Carrington was coming through the doorway, and Scully could let herself fall out of "Dana Scully, M.D." mode and into terrified partner and friend.


	5. Chapter 5

**Acute Psychiatric Ward, room 310**   
** 6:10 p.m.**

She stroked his hair, being careful to stay well away from the massive bruise that covered most of the right side of his forehead. He wouldn't be able to see out of that eye for days. She'd read the Incident Report written by the Registered Occupational Therapist who had been conducting his driving assessment. It was terribly simple, and simply terrible.

Mulder had passed all the usual tests. He'd been in the driving simulator for well over an hour while the therapist gradually increased the speed at which he was driving and the number of cars on the road in the computer-generated video he watched. Then she had the computer add a snow storm, which also made the "car" Mulder was driving start slipping and sliding on the highway, even though he had immediately dropped his virtual speed to under thirty miles an hour. Between one breath and the next he'd completely lost control of the car. He'd gone momentarily rigid, frozen in fear--Scully knew that was wrong; Mulder might have been frozen, but it had nothing to do with losing control of the car, and everything to do with what he was seeing inside his head--then apparently panicked and had fallen trying to scramble out of the simulator, striking his head against the edge of the control panel as he fell to the floor. The OTR didn't know how he'd gotten the scratch on his hand. He'd been motionless on the floor long enough for her to initiate the Code Blue, then had tried to get up, which had eventually resulted in the two OT's having to sit on him to keep him down.

His skull X-rays showed no damage, and neither had a CAT scan. But the EEG showed high levels of activity, more than should have been possible while he was drugged with the morphine. Dr. Carrington asked a specialist to look at the EEG, not trusting her initial impression that Mulder had not had a seizure this time. The specialist agreed with her, however, and now they simply waited until he could wake up and tell them what had happened.

Mulder's head twitched under her hand. She paused and looked at him, but he was still sleeping. His eyes were moving behind the closed eyelids, however, and, based on his description of what had happened in August, she was pretty sure she knew what he was experiencing.

Mulder had been assigned a case involving the kidnaping, rape, and death by torture of ten girls. Most of them had been under ten years of age; all had been too young to show any signs of sexual maturity. All had been non-White, had come from middle class homes, and had been taken at night, leaving behind a brutally murdered teenage babysitter. The killings had all the earmarks of ritual slaughter to a twisted someone's personal deity.

He should have refused the case the minute he looked at it. Hell, he should have refused it the minute Senior Agent Elliot had offered it to him. But she knew there would have been no way, short of literally wiping his memory, that they could have stopped him from trying to solve the case once he'd read the crime reports. Except for the race, and the fact that he was still alive and Samantha was still missing, every one of the kidnapings was a repeat of his sister's abduction.

She knew, without any trace of doubt, which kidnaping--she prayed as she had never prayed before, that it was only the kidnaping-- he was living. Christina Hernandez was of mixed parentage, Chicano and Black, had been eight years old with shoulder-length black hair and brown eyes, and her babysitter had been her fourteen-year-old brother Jesus. Jesus had tried to stop the kidnapper; he had a bloody steak knife in his fist, and his arm had been broken in two places when the kidnapper forced that arm the wrong-way around, making him stab himself in the abdomen. He had died still trying to save Christina, because he'd dragged himself nearly ten feet away from in front of the TV where they had been eating dinner.

There was the sound of a key in the door, then Dr. Carrington came in. "Still sleeping?"

Scully shrugged and got up, walking toward the door, making it clear she didn't want to talk where Mulder might be able to hear them. When they had gone to the end of the corridor, she turned around, leaning back against the safety rail in front of the floor-to-ceiling unbreakable window. "I don't know whether he's sleeping naturally at this point, or still sleeping the sleep of drugs, or even that of total exhaustion from the pain. I do know that he's not relaxed--he's still inside that killer's mind.

"Isabelle, this scares me. It scares me worse than any case we've been on, worse than when he almost died from a mutated retrovirus." That lie came out so easily these days. Even she sometimes forgot that it wasn't "mutated", it was _alien_, _non_\- human. "We knew that when he finally recovered from that, it would be for good. This . . . this whatever-it-is that he does now--we thought, when nothing happened after the first time in August, that it was a one-shot. Over, done with, never again. Pick up and go on with your life, and in a few more months, Mulder and I would be partners again, back to our regular assignments. Now . . .."

Abruptly she turned around, staring out the window, fighting to not even blink. She would _not_ cry in front of his doctor. She was a doctor herself, and doctors didn't cry when discussing their patients. Only this wasn't a patient, this was _Mulder, _and she wasn't his doctor, she was his partner, he was her best friend--she clutched at the safety rail with all her strength and the rail failed her.

The sobs took her and shook her like she had shaken her Raggedy Ann doll when she was three years old and the family dog had died. She was too young to understand; all she had known was that everyone else was unhappy and no one loved her any more, and she had to take it out on _someone. _So she'd shaken Annie hard enough to make her cloth arms and legs and head flop wildly back and forth--and it had done her no good at all. Then her Daddy "Ahab" had come, picked her up, and let her scream and pound furiously on his chest, and tear at his uniform buttons until she was too tired to try any more. He'd held her and rocked her until she fell asleep in his arms. He was still holding her the next morning when she woke up.

When she finally stopped crying, she was huddled on the floor in front of the safety rail. Dr. Carrington was next to her, holding her, having let her ruin the doctor's silk blouse with her tears, makeup, and runny nose. There was a half-empty box of tissues and a mound of wadded-up tissues on the floor in front of her. She pulled a couple more out and blew her nose. The familiar, but long-unfelt, harshness of the hospital brand of tissues was just what she needed.

"Better?" Dr. Carrington gave her a quick hug and let her go. She stayed down on the floor, but moved far enough away to be outside Scully's personal space.

Scully nodded. "Ye . . . yeah." Her voice was shaky and so were her hands. She knew her legs wouldn't hold her just yet, so she shifted and sat cross-legged. She was short enough she was able to scoot backwards under the safety rail until she could rest her back and head against the cool glass. Suddenly she had a vision of the housekeeper tomorrow morning, wondering just who had messed up her squeaky-clean windows, since children under sixteen weren't allowed on this unit.

She started giggling, then laughing, then she was laughing so hard she was crying again, but these were good tears, washing away the pain of the others. When she stopped this time, she knew the face that she turned to Dr. Carrington was calm and back in control.

"Now what, Isabelle? I'm very tempted to ask you to start the Compazine now, before he's awake. But if we do that, will he still be . . . I don't know what to call it . . . connected? . . . strongly enough to tell us where or how to catch this killer? I'm sure I know which victim he's zeroed in on, and I know for a fact that he will _never _forgive us, never trust _me _again, if he is unable to stop this because of something we do."

She started to gather the tissues, in preparation for getting up. Dr. Carrington shook her head, saying, "Forget that. Housekeeping will get them. Right now, I want to check on Mulder again. I don't think he should be left to just the fifteen-minute ward checks any longer than necessary. He could injure himself if he's unaware of where he is and gets out of bed."

She nodded, remembering that they had decided not to restrain Mulder in a bed this time, but admit him to the psych ward because here he could have a locking room with a private toilet. He would be frantic if he'd made it as far as the door and was unable to get out, and unable to free himself from his inner world enough to communicate with the outer world.

* * *

**7:05 p.m.**

He was still asleep, but it was obvious that he was coming closer to waking up. His restless movements and the occasional understandable word he muttered made it clear he was already trying to tell her something. That, at least, was significant progress from the first time, when other agents had sat with him, hour after hour, trying to get anything relevant when all he wanted to say was 'Let me go' or 'I have to stop him' or 'knives'.

With a violent gasp for air, Mulder sat straight up, left eye wide open and frantically searching for something. Then he bolted for the open door of the bathroom, and she could hear the unmistakable sounds of unproductive retching. She stood up, but gave him a few minutes of privacy, hoping that he wouldn't need her help, or the Compazine immediately.

The toilet flushed and the faucet turned on, so Scully readied her tape recorder, in case he was coherent enough to talk to her. In another couple of minutes he was leaning against the door jamb, then he slid down it--a controlled slide--till he was sitting on the floor. His face was ashen, the one pupil she could see fully dilated, his breathing irregular, but he was looking up at her, seeing _her, _and he was in control.

"Demerol. Soon, Scully. The headache's bad and it's gonna get worse."

She'd forgotten about that. Why had she ever thought that the initial morphine would be enough? The first time his headache had lasted until he understood that they'd caught the killer. Why should this time be any different? She started to apologize and was struck by the fact that he was humming a tune. "Mulder, why are you humming?"

He didn't answer, at least not directly. Instead he started to sing:

_"And I will show you grotto and cave,_   
_ And sacrificial altar._   
_ And I will show you blood on the stone_   
_ And I will be your mentor._   
_ And Night will be our darling_   
_ And Fear will be our name._

_And it's hi-ho-hey, I am the bold marauder._   
_ It's hi-ho-hey, I am the white destroyer."_

The words were awful, conjuring horrible images of what the killer did to the little girls, but the tune was catchy enough to make her want to join in. The very idea that Mulder could know such a song turned her stomach.

Then he grabbed his head, bent over, and simply grunted in pain for a few minutes. When he straightened back up he said, "He's a neighbor. Not a next-door neighbor, but somewhere in the neighborhood. He had Christina so totally terrified she went with him docilely, and they walked side by side away from her house. He held her hand.

"And now I want the Compazine. Put me down and keep me down for at least a week, Scully. I think I'll try killing myself if I don't forget this before I wake up. He's a monster. A cold- blooded, sadistic monster who sacrifices to the gods of hate and bigotry and--and enjoys every single thing he does to the girls, their babysitters, and their families."

He wrapped his arms around himself and drew up his knees, hugging and rocking ever so slightly. He probably wasn't aware he was doing it. His left eye had lost its focus, but she needed him focused. She needed him in the here and now, because he hadn't given her jack shit to catch the killer, and she was sure he didn't realize that.

He'd said Christina walked away from her house, not that she'd walked all the way to where she'd been killed. The killer was probably white--almost certainly white--if the song was really pertinent. How could he get away with that unless the neighbors were used to seeing Christina with other white men? Or had she been one of the victims where no one noticed anything? She couldn't remember; too many victims, too many locations, too many houses. Too many suspects. With ten dead kidnap victims, and the same number of dead babysitters, all in one major metropolitan city over a two year period, there were nearly two hundred names on the short list alone.

So she steeled herself for the deliberate cruelty to come. "No, Mulder, not yet."

He flinched. After a second, his rocking became a little faster, a little harder. She could see the fingertips of his right hand, and they were bone white. He would have bruises on his ribs from where he was holding himself. He was panting in his pain and distress, unable to ask why she wouldn't give him the peace he needed.

She wouldn't tower over him. She sat down on the floor next to him, blocking his access to the bathroom, but leaving him the entire rest of the room if he couldn't face this now, if he had to get away from her. He couldn't go far; the door was locked and she had the panic button the charge nurse had insisted she wear the entire time she was in here. He couldn't hurt himself either; there was nothing in this room but the mattress on the floor and one blanket.

"Mulder, where did he take her? Tell me. Not Christina's house. I know about that. Where did he take her? Was it his car? What kind of car--stick shift or manual? Car or pickup truck? Come *on*, Mulder, I need this. There are too many men on the list; narrow it down for me."

The rocking was becoming frantic. He was mouthing words--More words to the same song? she wondered--although no sounds came out.

He stopped, so suddenly that she could see his hair take a fraction of a second to settle around his forehead. He didn't breathe for so long she became afraid he'd faint. His lips shaped words, short phrases, but she had no idea what they were.

"Mulder, you _have _to tell me. Out loud. Say it." She held the tape recorder closer, to be sure she'd catch even a whisper.

And it was a whisper. A faint, totally despairing whisper. A whisper that said he knew he had to go deeper into the hell only he could see. "Pickup. White sheets. Hoods. Burning crosses."

His voice strengthened and he was singing again:

_"And we will go to ravage and kill,_   
_ And we will go to plunder._   
_ And we will wave the widowing flag,_   
_ And I will be your Mother._   
_ And Christ will be our darling_   
_ And Fear will be our name._

_And it's hi-ho-hey, I am the bold marauder._   
_ It's hi-ho-hey, I am the white destroyer."_

Stunned, she sat back, instantly realizing she couldn't search the list of suspects right now to find out who was in the Ku Klux Klan--if that information was even available. It wasn't the information she needed, and Mulder obviously knew that.

She took a breath, held it a moment, then let it out slowly. Repeated it. Then a third time, calming herself, getting ready for the torture she was about to inflict. "Mulder, _where did they go_? The last place. The place he killed her. Tell me. Describe it."

The look he turned on her she would never forget. It was hatred and love and forgiveness and that despair--and goodbye. He didn't expect to come out of this sane. When he spoke, his voice was the flat, emotionless monotone of someone talking under drugs, and his words were interspersed with the grunts of agony that she knew meant he was close to passing out.

"A house. His house. Steps up the front. A covered porch. Upstairs to the first bedroom. The ropes are ready, waiting. He makes her take her clothes off herself. She's cold, he can see the gooseflesh. He shows her a picture--Amy? Maribeth? It doesn't matter. He makes her lie down on the altar--the bed--and he . . . he . . . rapes her. Anally. Orally. Vaginally. In that order. She's bleeding. She can't walk. He picks her up. _Drops_ her in the tub, and scours her clean. Have to be clean for the sacrifice."

What he sang this time was much shorter, and chilled her more than the other two verses combined. She would remember those two lines and the chorus for the rest of her life.

_"And Death will be our darling_   
_ And Fear will be our name._

_And it's hi-ho-hey, I am the bold marauder. It's hi-ho-hey, I am the white destroyer."_

He returned to the monotone. "Goes downstairs and makes himself dinner. Washes the dishes. The Polaroid is on the mantle over the fireplace. She's still in the tub. Good. One picture now. Save the rest of the roll. They'll get better later. Puts the camera back. Goes to sleep alone in his bedroom."

There was a pause, and without even realizing what she was doing, she pushed the panic button. She screamed "STAFF!" and grabbed Mulder's wrists.

He tried to get first one, then the other, up to his mouth. She held on, feeling his teeth on her hands, her fingers. But he couldn't bite through to tear open his own wrists, and then there were other hands helping. He was wild: it took one person on each arm to keep his wrists away from his mouth, and another to hold his legs so he couldn't try to kick the people on his arms. They flipped him face down on the floor, holding him there while the nurse injected him with something right through his pajama pants.

Almost immediately he started to calm down. Within five minutes he was asleep, and they put him to bed.

* * *

**Emergency Room**   
** 7:30 p.m.**

It was cold; ERs were always too cold for the patients, once they made you change into the hospital gown. Scully looked at the plastic bag that held the remains of her blouse and jacket and wondered why the nurse had absolutely refused to take them off her the normal way. So it would get the wounds dirty. What did that matter? Her sleeves were nowhere near as contaminated as a human mouth--human bites were considered filthier than dog or cat bites. So it would hurt. What was a little more pain, on top of what she had already? She had refused to let them take her to surgery because she needed to be able to talk to Dr. Kennedy when he arrived. Now she waited for the local anesthetic to take effect in both hands, so they could sew her up here.

And she shivered, even under two blankets straight from the warmer. From the cold, she told herself. It couldn't possibly be shock from watching Mulder trying so desperately to kill himself that he didn't care how badly he was hurting her.

Scully remembered one patient from her Psychiatric rotation, a woman she had to transfer to the state hospital on what they called a "Level III Suicide Watch". That woman had absolutely no privacy. A staff member was within arm's reach at all times, she slept with her arms restrained because she couldn't be trusted not do something to herself under the covers, she was restrained and fed via NG tube at mealtimes because she refused to eat, and she received all her medicines by injection because she would deliberately vomit if they tried putting the medicine in her tube feedings. Scully had never seen anyone in such mental pain before. To this day she wondered if she had done the right thing, because that patient, as soon she had been deemed safe to come off constant visual supervision, hung herself in the shower room on her ward.

Mulder was going to be on that kind of suicide watch when he woke up.

Dr. Kennedy listened to her tape recording of those ten minutes and they discussed what Mulder had done while she was getting the stitches and dressings applied. They discussed what medicine to use; neither of them wanted to use heavy enough doses of Compazine to keep him "snowed" to the point that he didn't know what was going on. That class of neuroleptics had major side effects that became more severe with increased dosage, and duration of dosing, and some of those side effects, in some patients, were irreversible. Mulder had had one of those side effects when he'd taken the Compazine in August. The newer drugs had far fewer side effects, and in many patients were just as, if not more, effective.

They knew Mulder could make himself "forget" if they used the Compazine. They knew the newer drugs were much safer. Dr. Kennedy requested a consult from a psychiatrist who specialized in drug therapy. His recommendation was to put Mulder on Risperdal and a strong sedative to keep him "out", and figuratively cross their fingers.

* * *

**Psychiatric Ward**   
** 11:20 a.m., November 6**

Scully paused at the locked door to the Psychiatric Ward. She hadn't bothered to visit this past week--what was the point of sitting with Mulder when he was so heavily drugged he didn't even turn over by himself? It wasn't like in June, when he might wake up at any moment. This time he woke up because Dr. Kennedy finally let him. Mom went to see him in the regular room he'd been temporarily moved to. She went every day, stayed and talked to him for at least a couple of hours.

It was different for her. _She_ hadn't listened to Mulder describe what Warren Richardson had--her mind went off on a tangent. Some part of her mind, the analytical part, had wondered over and over again why Mulder had kept talking. The porch probably would have been enough to identify the correct house. Then "the first bedroom" almost certainly would have confirmed it. But still he had continued, describing the initial rapes and torture, and the Polaroid on the mantle. Suddenly she understood. Because _that _was the detail that had told the police they had the right house. Only Mulder hadn't "seen" it until "he" had gone to get the camera.

And to _not _be able to forget? She desperately wished she had some of whatever Mulder had been drugged with at Ellens Air Force Base. She'd give it to him this very minute, and not care how much extra memory she erased, if only she could let him forget that night.

Then she shivered with fear--for Mulder. There was no way in hell she would believe that he had done his usual "spooky" thing this time. This time it really was ESP, no matter how well Mulder argued against it. This time he couldn't argue it away. The Polaroid camera being kept on the mantle, the white robe and hood found in Richardson's pick-up truck, the fact that he dropped Christina into the bathtub--Mulder could _not _have intuited those, no matter how spooky he was being.

If the Risperdal worked, if Mulder got out of here with his sanity intact, he would go right back to the ISU and profiling until it happened again with another serial killer. And then another and another-- She shuddered in horror this time. If only she could make everything could go back the way it had been before they had been called in to help on June 16th.

"If wishes were horses . . .." She shook her head and made herself concentrate on why she was here today. Dr. Kennedy had stopped the sedative; the nurse had called her at her mother's house where she was staying, saying it looked like he'd be waking up mid-morning, and that he'd be back on the Psychiatric Ward by then. So she'd called both Assistant Director Skinner and Senior Agent Elliot, and taken a cab here because she couldn't drive with all the stitches in her hands and her mother was out with friends. Mulder's future in the FBI depended on what happened today, and in the next month. Dr. Kennedy had insisted that he stay here that long, no matter what he said or how he functioned initially.

She agreed wholeheartedly. Mulder was incredibly good at hiding things that bothered him. She was going to deliver an ultimatum, as soon as he was capable of understanding it: he either stayed voluntarily and worked with Dr. Kennedy, or, as his next of kin, she'd go to court to get Guardianship papers, and then have him committed.

Taking a deep breath, she pushed the doorbell. When she was let into the ward, she went to the nurses' station for an update. Mulder had been awake since about 10:15. He knew that he'd tried to commit suicide. He'd said it was obvious this was a psych ward, but he wasn't sure whether he was still at GUMC. He'd said he knew he would be on Class A suicide precautions for a while, and he wouldn't give them any problems about that. Then he'd surprised all of them by asking how soon he could talk to Dr. Kennedy.

The nurse handed her an envelope. It had her name on it, in unfamiliar handwriting. She started reading the piece of paper inside.

_Scully, I know you_

She looked up, her eyes asking the question she couldn't make herself say aloud.

"He was in restraints, you know. So he asked me to write it. He said he figured, with his luck, he'd be talking with the doctor when you got here and he wanted you to have the apology first thing." The nurse put a hand out, very gently touching one of hers. "He knows what he did to you. He's very grateful you stopped him. I've never seen anything like it. _No one _remembers a suicide attempt that clearly--the very fact that they're actively suicidal means they aren't thinking clearly."

Scully smiled, tucked the paper in her pocket to read later, and shook her head. "Mulder has an eidetic memory. The only things that interfere with it are certain drugs, and he wasn't drugged then. He could quote you word for word what each of us said and describe exactly what each of us did--not that I'd ask him to. I'd be worried if he _couldn't_ remember.

She looked at the nurse, became serious again. "That's what you'll have to watch out for--him remembering. He made himself get inside the head of a serial killer, to try to figure out how to catch that man. It worked too well; he 'became' the man for one of those horrible murders. He told me, right off, that he'd try suicide if he had to remember past her kidnaping. Then I had to make him live through the entire thing, to actually tell me about it, in order to get the information that enabled the local police to arrest the right man.

"Mulder is one of the gentlest people I know. He would _never _do to anyone one one-hundredth of what that killer did to those children. He just about told me he didn't expect to come out of this sane. That he's well enough to act rationally now is beyond anything I could expect."


	6. Chapter 6

**3:30 p.m., November 9**

What a fool he'd been. What a blind, starry-eyed fool. So he'd thought he could deal with it while he was snowed, had he? Thursday morning had been the honeymoon, and _this_, this "just- leave-me-alone-and-let-me-kill-myself" depression, was the marriage. For better or for worse, till death do us part--and they watched him _way_ too closely for any chance of that.

Mulder ignored the psychiatric aides on either side of him, looking passively out the floor-to-ceiling window at the end of the corridor, his hands dangling loosely from the handcuffs permanently attached to the sides of the chain around his waist, his stocking feet in the ankle chains that prevented him from walking normally, let alone running. He had "decompensated", as they so politely put it. "Crashed" was a much better term. He knew exactly what had happened, and knew there was nothing anyone here could do to help him.

He would go back to Quantico because he had a spectacular solve rate, and he would do this again and again and again, and eventually he would simply be this oracle they fed nightmares to and in return he'd spit out solutions. He couldn't live like that. He _wouldn't_ live like that. He'd kill himself before he let that happen.

He'd made a running dive for this window late Thursday afternoon, intending to have enough momentum to crash through. He had been sudden enough, and he ran fast enough, that the aides hadn't been able to stop him. He had learned his lesson the hard way; that "glass" wasn't, of course, and he had the bruises to prove it-- and the sore muscles and bruises from where they'd wrestled him immobile on the floor, two people on each arm and each leg, holding him there till the nurse could stab him with the needle full of Ativan to put him out.

Now he let them do whatever they wanted. Ate the food and took the medicines they put in his mouth because it was easier to swallow than spit them out, sat where they put him, walked when they made him exercise, lay quietly in bed while they exchanged the chains for the leather wrist and ankle restraints he slept in, and, in general, waited hopelessly for a non-existent chance to get away from them long enough to smash his head against a wall enough times to cause enough brain damage that he wouldn't know _anything_ any more.

Dr. Kennedy told him the anti-depressant would kick in any time now. He didn't believe it. It had been at least a couple of months--hadn't it?--since he'd had the first dose. He didn't care that the calendar said that was just three days ago; the endless minutes of total despair told him it must be a lot longer ago than that.

Jodi took his left arm, made him turn around and head back the other way. They made him walk the full length of the ward at least fifty times a day. The psychologist said that exercise stimulated the appetite, and he had none. He had no desire for anything now, unless you counted the desire to be dead. He couldn't even make himself care that Scully hadn't come to visit him--not _once_\--since he'd been here.

He wanted to die. And they wouldn't let him.

* * *

**District of Columbia Superior Court Building**   
** 9:14 a.m., November 10**

Scully was actually stumbling as she left the courtroom, she was so intent on _not_ falling apart. Once was enough. Even though her mother would never say a word, she didn't want to make a fool of herself in public. Mom helped her to the ladies' room, stuffed a fresh bunch of tissues in her hand, then excused herself to use the facilities. That "privacy", little though it was, was just what she needed to pull herself back together, rather than burst into tears.

She took a glance in the mirror, not expecting to have to do any damage control. What she saw shocked her. She was actually ashen and she couldn't blame it on the fluorescent lights this time. Her "waterproof" eye makeup had smeared; obviously the many quick dabs she had made at her eyes in front of the judge had been more than enough to ruin things. She made a quick decision. After carefully pulling on a pair of surgical gloves to keep her stitches dry, she ran water and scrubbed her face clean. The air dryer, instead of paper towels, was a nuisance, but the tissues Mom had given her let her blot off most of the water before she stuck her face to the barely-warm air coming from the dryer. By the time her mother was done washing her hands, she was ready to go into public again.

Mom didn't say anything until they were in the car. She drove; Dana didn't even get a chance to get in the driver's seat. "Dana, are you OK? Are you going to be able to handle me being Fox's Guardian? Or do you want to ask for an impar--"

"No! No. No impartial, court-appointed Guardian. He or she wouldn't know Mulder, wouldn't have any idea of what he needs, what is likely to make him worse." She was silent for a moment, trying to marshal her arguments. Then she turned sideways on the seat. She would be able to look at her mother, even if Mom couldn't take her eyes off the road to look at her.

"Mulder has been kidnaped, drugged, tortured, you name it, someone has done it to him. He's handled all of that without freaking out. Right now he's so depressed he's not aware that they've got him in restraints twenty-four hours a day. When he does realize, he's likely to flash back to one of those times. And the _worst_ times, Mom, were when government officials ordered it. So the usual method in a psych facility, of restraining someone physically and chemically until they can control their behavior, may just backfire. He'll associate the restraints and drugs with attempts to get him to talk or to give up people or things _they_ think he shouldn't have. You'll have to--"

She couldn't go any farther. Her hands clenched around the shoulder belt as she hung on until she could get her emotions back under control. Finally she was able to say, "I'm sorry. I--"

"Dana, don't apologize. We both know that I was only supposed to be there for emotional support. You were supposed to become Fox's Guardian. How could we be expected to know that this judge wouldn't allow it because you have Fox's Power of Attorney and Medical Power of Attorney?" Her right hand patted Dana's left knee. "We're both lucky I was there and that the judge was willing to accept me because I know Fox, yet have no financial access. Things will work out fine. _Fox _will be fine. He just needs some time."

Scully nodded. She turned to face front, put her head back and tried to let the drive soothe her. It didn't work. She was too worried about Mulder, and Mom having to make the decisions for his treatment--and what if Dr. Kennedy decided they couldn't handle him there any more? Would he have to go to St. Elizabeth's Hospital, with the long-term patients? That would trigger all his _waking_ nightmares of government conspiracies. She _had _to get through to him, to make him understand--

But he didn't even know she existed now. He stared through her as if she wasn't there, all four times she'd visited him since she'd first gotten Kennedy's call at Quantico. The second suicide attempt was bad enough; she had hardly slept after getting that news, just going in to watch Mulder sleep the sleep of Ativan. But then Kennedy called the next day with a new "problem". And the Mulder who had _always _responded to her voice, who throughout his long and hard recovery from his accident had always looked to her for relief, had pushed himself to get to her side--that Mulder was gone. She was so accustomed to communicating with his eyes, a simple look conveying thoughts, attitudes, decisions. Now his eyes just slid across her, or worse, stayed fixed on the space she inhabited without a flicker of acknowledgment. He responded to everyone else, aware of their presences and activities even while remaining completely passive and uncommunicative; but for her there was nothing.

On the 6th, when he had awakened after that horrible first attempt (she couldn't bear to think about her responsibility for pushing him into that), he had seemed so calm, so much himself. The change in him had come without any apparent warning. With his note to her and his reassurances to the nurses, she had actually hoped that he would be fine--that the Mulder she knew would defeat even this nightmare. She had left the hospital not fifteen minutes before his attempt to dive through the window. If only she had realized what his silence had meant. If only she had--she shook herself mentally. "If only"s were useless. She hadn't noticed. The staff hadn't noticed. He had been dozing much of the afternoon, still tired from the residue of the sedative and from his two straight hours with Dr. Kennedy before lunch. How was _anyone_ to know when his quietness turned into the decision to kill himself?

He wasn't in restraints then; he had been so obviously sane, aware and in control of himself, that he only had the two aides who shadowed him. When he was awake he joked with them, told them in advance _everything _he was going to do, but still was completely respectful of their responsibility toward him. His fitful conversation with her gradually ground to a halt, and when he had nodded off for the third time in ten minutes, she decided she should go and let him rest, profoundly relieved that he seemed miraculously at peace after his ordeal.,

Unfortunately, there had been no miracle. They told her afterwards that it was as if he'd been shot from a cannon: he came out of his chair and took off at a dead run toward that damn window. Tom and Phil said they never had a chance, that he dodged three other patients and staff members before taking a flying leap at the window, arms over his head to protect himself from flying glass----and then had fallen to the ground, stunned from the impact against the reinforced Plexiglas. According to the report she'd read, he had been even wilder than when he'd tried to bite his wrists out. He had been screaming this time, totally out of control, and had injured three staff members before they'd been able to subdue him and get the Ativan in him.

And when he woke up--he didn't care. He didn't do anything voluntarily, but neither did he refuse anything they made him do. He was a living, breathing, totally dead human being who didn't care about anything. He didn't see her, he didn't hear her, he didn't even seem to feel her hand when she touched his. He was a wax-work dummy of the Mulder she knew.

* * *

**Margaret Scully's house**   
** 10:00 a.m.**

"Dana, you're crying."

Her mother's voice startled her; she put her hands up to her face, frantically wiping the tears away. "No, I'm not, Mom. I just have something in my eyes from the heater vent."

Mom was at her side of the car, opening the door. When had they gotten to her mother's house? They were supposed to go to her apartment. Then she was being held in her mother's arms, with her hair being stroked, and Mom was saying, "There, there, it's all right, Dana. You can cry; you need to cry. Let it out, honey, I'm here."

And she did. When her mother was ready to go to the hospital, taking them the Guardianship papers, she couldn't even face leaving the house. She was too overwhelmed with all the possible futures she saw for herself and Mulder. When Mom eventually came back, with "horror stories" about the number of forms she'd had to fill out, and the number of times she'd had to sign her name, she couldn't muster the interest to nod, let alone smile with her. Dinner was no better. She was still battling the impossible future that said Mulder might not come back. She pushed her food around, not really eating anything, and tore her bread into bits, and rolled those bits into pills, and she _still _couldn't see a way around that future. When Mom went to bed she was still pacing, hugging one of the throw pillows from the couch. It was well past her own bedtime before she could finally admit that there probably was no other future--Mulder was not likely to make it back. She would have to go on alone, make a new career for herself in the Bureau.

She would visit him at St. Elizabeth's on weekends, talking to him about things that had no meaning for him anymore because his world would be bounded by locked doors to which he had no keys and the medicines they gave him to keep the horrific images away, or to keep him calm enough to be let out of the seclusion/restraint room. If she were very lucky, he might eventually be well enough to be allowed off the ward with a staff member accompanying them while they took slow walks--to accommodate his delayed reaction time caused by the medicines-- around the hospital grounds.

It was nearly 4:00 a.m. by the time she was ready for bed. Dr. Theodopolous, the Chief Pathologist at Quantico, was hinting about _thinking_ about retiring in the next few years. She would talk to him, see if he had any suggestions. With a clear head, and heart finally at peace, she went to upstairs to her room.

* * *

**Georgetown University Medical Center**   
** Acute Psychiatric Ward**   
** Counseling Room**   
** 1:10 p.m., December 10**

Dr. John Kennedy patiently watched the man off to his left. Mulder had retreated to the window again, scuffing one foot in a small circle on the floor, his hands hanging loosely at his sides. He had not yet completely outgrown the kinesthetic habits of the restraints he no longer needed. Nor had he outgrown the awareness that he wasn't allowed to get more than arm's length away from a staff member. There was a tension about him that spoke of not enough time having passed to relax to his newest level of freedom, where he could get all the way across the room from the aide assigned to visually supervise him that shift.

This room, used by all the psychiatrists with too few psych admits to qualify for a private office, featured several soft chairs, an old desk for the doctor, a locked cabinet of supplies near the door, and in the corner by the window, a TV and VCR on a cart. No extra tools or aids would be needed today: this was a talk session. Now that he was past the stage of needing intensive medication and direct supervision, Mulder was thinking too clearly to respond well to most exercises Kennedy would normally use. In this case, Mulder's training as a psychologist--not just his classroom knowledge, but his internship and all the years of practical experience in the F.B.I.--tended to complicate his psychiatric treatment.

By now Kennedy knew better than to try to engage Mulder before he was ready. He was perfectly content to sit this complex FBI Agent out. Mulder _would_ talk to him before too many more minutes had passed; he had already gone through the stage of deliberately not saying anything important until it was too late to pursue that topic.

Today's waiting time allowed him to continue his own internal debate regarding a subject he knew his patient would have great difficulty approaching directly, even if he were willing to do so. Still, it was just as obvious that this was a subject neither Mulder nor Kennedy could afford to leave entirely alone. It would have to be addressed at some point, preferably in the relatively neutral and controlled context of a psychiatric session--rather than letting the thing pop up on its own, with unpredictable consequences. John had been briefly tempted to call Margaret Scully for her opinion on the matter, but that would have been both inappropriate and largely unnecessary; it was quite clear to anyone, even without professional training, how Margaret felt about Fox and Dana.

After a time Mulder turned around again, and resumed his pacing. The pacing helped him to think, he said, and Kennedy knew just how important it was to Mulder to be able to think. He was no longer frantic, and Kennedy noted his progress with approval: he was learning how to control this, how to live with himself. He still had occasional flashbacks to his original trauma, reliving the torture and murder of that girl; but he had learned how to survive those flashbacks, how not to become immersed in them. He always remembered where he was, and knew how to get whatever help he needed from the staff. More importantly, he showed an increasing trust in his own resources. He had regained not only a desire but a determination to live, and the potency of that desire was probably the best, most promising gauge of his recovery.

"I still don't understand it," he said, stopping in his tracks and absentmindedly taking a seat, his fingers playing over the elbow rest. "How could I not know she was there? I know _now_ that she was with me almost as soon as you finished with me that day; we were talking all afternoon in between me fading out. I remember it, it's _there_; she told me about some car trouble her brother Charles was having, we joked about him being so faithful to his old Volkswagen. We didn't say much, we didn't talk about what had happened. That was what my note was for--I'll have to ask her what she thought of my prose style."

"But that's not what's bothering you." Mulder was an expert deflector--but with Kennedy he was up against the best when it came to fielding fly balls.

Mulder nodded, his face taking on the peculiar cast it had when he was "replaying" a memory. "Then she left, and as far as I was concerned she'd never been there. The memory, the knowledge wasn't there any more. That was one of the things that convinced me to jump: I was in this . . . thing alone. Nobody knew what I'd seen, and the one person who had seen me go through it--who had sent me into it, for God's sake--didn't care enough to see me again."

Kennedy shook his head carefully. This line of thought had consumed much of their time together in the past two weeks. It had been a long time before Mulder had been ready for these sessions, and he'd obviously had plenty of opportunity inside that formidable mind of his to build up the kinds of arguments, condemnations, and defenses that made Kennedy's best judgment so vital now. "That's not the way it happened, Mulder. You know better than to keep quoting that state of mind. Take away that accusation, and what do you have?"

"Maybe the trauma of what I did caught up with me, maybe that pain distracted my mind and pushed out the more recent memory. Maybe the dozing let that happen." Mulder shrugged, and chewed on his lip.

"That's plausible. But it doesn't explain it for you, does it?"

"No. I needed her there. I wanted her there. She'd been with me through all of it, she never gave up on me, not before the accident or for one minute after. She was probably the one thing I would have _liked_ to have seen. And somehow I stared right through her."

"Are you so sure you wanted to see her?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You said a minute ago that she was the one who sent you into the nightmare that made you try to kill yourself. It would not be unreasonable to resent that just a little bit. If you believe that's true, then it would make sense that part of you would want to refuse her admittance at that point, would want to nullify her hold on you. Knowing you, it's just as likely that you 'faded out' expressly to get her to go away so you could make the attempt, whether you were aware of your motivation or not."

Mulder buried his head in his hands, fingers pushing at his skull as if to penetrate the knots in his mind. "I can't accept that."

"Of course you can. She pushed you, and you fell--hard. You wanted to die. And she made you go there. You said it yourself. She refused you the peace you begged her for. She didn't care, she was going to get what she was after and the hell with what it did to you."

"No! Not Dana!"

"But that's what happened, isn't it? They got their killer, and you got . . . the psych ward. Why is it so hard for you to admit your anger about this?"

"Because she doesn't deserve it. It's not fair to her. She let me bite her hands to shreds trying to stop me from hurting myself; that's not someone who doesn't care, is it?"

"You tell me, Mulder. What do you think?"

"Fuck you, Dr. Kennedy." The words were quiet, tired. Mulder spoke at the floor, so softly Kennedy almost couldn't hear him. "I think that Dana Scully is the best friend I ever had or could hope to have. I don't deserve half the loyalty and support she's given me. From the first day I met her she has taken me seriously--not necessarily my theories, but she has always listened to _me_. She has put herself, her career and her life, on the line for me more times than I want to think about." Now he looked up, eyes anguished, raising his voice a little in order to be heard. "I've been nothing but trouble for her, and she has never failed to back me up. She believed in me when I didn't, she kept me going when I gave up hope. I can't believe I could want to shut her out like that."

"But you did. And if you had seen her face as she tried to reach you afterwards, you would have had the satisfaction of knowing she'd been suitably punished."

Now Mulder's eyes burned at him. "My doctor isn't supposed to *try* to make me feel guilty, is he?"

"No one has to try with you, Mulder. Guilt appears to be your personal specialty. You seem to prefer it to honest anger. I'm just trying to help you express yourself more accurately."

Mulder got up again and took a step toward the desk. "Express myself about what, _Dok-tor_ Kennedy?" Mulder the psychologist never liked being pinned down, especially not by a psychiatrist.

Internally, Dr. Kennedy took a deep breath--keeping his exterior in practiced, professional calm. "About how what your partner made you do on one level was a betrayal. No matter what else was at stake, the person you trusted most forced you to hurt yourself. The one person who _knew _how much it would cost you was the one who made you pay the price."

"But--" Mulder started, but for once his defenses gave way. He couldn't get out the next words, his face twitching and almost contracting on itself in the effort he was making not to feel this. Then the tears came, helpless sobs of a lost child, and Mulder sank to the floor. Kennedy leaned forward, but saw that Mulder showed no sign of wanting to hurt himself, so he relaxed back into his chair.

Good. Let it come. It was important to let Mulder do this part by himself. Kennedy let him be, and fished inside his suit coat for a particular notebook. Two days earlier he had met with Agent Scully, and now, while Mulder was "busy", would be a good time to review his notes on her version of that story. She, too, clearly knew a thing or two about guilt, responsibility, holding one's self accountable. She, too, clearly had little ability or preparedness to confront precisely what her partner meant to her. The idea of allegiance seemed to be a powerful one for her. If Dr. Kennedy were to use one word to describe this woman, it would be "honorable".

The quiet, firmly self-contained and yet somehow unfailingly feminine agent had described in vivid, painful detail the look on Mulder's face as he gave in to the "vision" of this killer, a look simultaneously condemning her for and releasing her from what he was about to do. If that look had included forgiveness, Dana Scully had not yet claimed it. She ran the fingers of one hand over the still-fresh scars on the other, and seemed unaware that she was tracing the wounds of two people with her words when she said, "I wish I'd never heard him say those things. I wish it hadn't been me. But it couldn't have been anyone else. He wouldn't have told anyone else. He trusted me. And he would never have forgiven either of us if we had let that monster hurt another girl." With that she had looked away, and then back at him, bravely wiping away unshed tears. John Kennedy had been struck by the incongruous thought that Da Vinci would have liked to have painted that face. "I knew it might be too much," she had gone on. "I knew it might mean losing him. But I had to do it. I had to be true to the man, the agent I knew. Fox Mulder--" and her voice had broken; but with a control that seemed instinctive, she regained herself. "Fox Mulder never stops until he gets as close to the truth as the universe will let him."

Mulder's sobs gradually lessened and became the cleansing tears of grief. Kennedy shut the notebook and put it in the desk drawer temporarily. Mulder's cries slowly coalesced into words. "How could she do that to me?" He pulled up the end of his shirt to wipe at his face, ignoring the tissue box within reach on the corner of the desk.

"You know it wasn't easy for her. It wasn't a choice she wanted to make."

"No . . .." He snuffled, and drew himself up a bit on the floor, not yet willing to stand. "I knew she didn't want to. She was getting the job done, the same thing I would have done."

"What would you have done, Mulder? If it had been Scully and not you?"

"I--I don't know." He gave a big sigh. Clearly, he had thought about this. Though still wet with tears, his face was wry. "I probably would have chickened out. I've observed before this that Dana Scully is stronger than I am, and tougher than I am." He snuffled again, wiped at his face again. "She packs a lot into a little package. You might have noticed."

"I never met her before your accident. A lot of things have changed in both your lives since then."

"What do you mean?"

"For one, you don't work together any more. Her mother is now your legal guardian. One could conceivably call you her brother at this point, not her partner." Kennedy chose his words carefully: we won't call her your sister, will we?

Mulder obviously didn't like the idea. Apparently this thought hadn't occurred to him. He managed to get to his feet and start to slowly pace again, shaking his head. "No. It's not like that."

"What is it like, then?"

Mulder shot him a glance, the protective glance of a child that doesn't want you to see his private treasure because you'll probably just think it's a bunch of rocks. "I told you, she's my friend." He sat wearily down again in the same chair he had occupied earlier. After the briefest of pauses, he deliberately clasped his hands together in his lap.

"Tell me about Dana Scully, Mulder."

"What?"

"Describe her to me. Remember, I don't know her the way you do. What is she like?"

Kennedy knew full well that Mulder was highly unlikely to respond candidly to the question. His relationship with Scully was a private issue, a secret of sorts, connected with the secrets and dangers surrounding their work together. Kennedy had gotten a particularly impressive glimpse of that secret on the day the Zoloft kicked in following Mulder's second suicide attempt. Mulder emerged from his semi-catatonic withdrawal to find himself in full five-point restraints--and went completely, hysterically berserk. In utter, terrified incomprehension of what had happened to him, what his mind had clung to was Dana Scully: his need for her safety, and his certainty of her ability to save him. This woman was bedrock for this man. This, of course, was why the anger had been so hard for him to bear. Mulder's statement that he needed Scully there had been an honest one. But Kennedy also knew that these feelings were not open for further inspection.

As expected, Mulder took the opportunity to gather his sense of humor about him. It might mean the end of productivity for today, but it was necessary that Mulder be able to walk out of this room feeling like himself.

"I don't know," he started, that wolfish grin of his starting to make an appearance. "Short. Smart. Strong. Stubborn."

Dr. Kennedy steepled his fingers together, and waited to be sure Mulder had caught the gesture. This particular patient placed great value on symbolic nuance, and Kennedy had noted even at their first session, back in early September, that Mulder spent a good deal of energy "casing" his doctor, watching for patterns and clues in the psychiatrist's behavior that might show him how to play the game. "Some people might also call her a beautiful woman."

"What's your point, Doc?" Aggression, but colored with that sense of humor. Good.

"I wondered if that had ever been a problem for you."

"What do you mean?" This was one angle Mulder had no intention of playing along with, obviously. Too bad, kid, you're on the doctor's territory now.

"The two of you have worked in close proximity under intense pressure for a number of years. You have each described the other as the one person you trust, trust absolutely. The impartial observer might call that an intimate relationship. I asked the question because I imagine that, given FBI protocols governing your situation, you may have experienced some conflict in the matter which would contribute to how you feel now." He deliberately kept his terminology academic, giving Mulder emotional cover.

The cover wasn't enough. Mulder shook his head again, his jaw tightening. The tinge of panic touching his eyes spoke volumes. He didn't speak.

"You objected when I described you as her brother. How would you describe your relationship with Dana?"

"Easy." He spat out the word. "She's my partner."

"Not lately, she isn't. Unless you're talking about a different sense of the word. For the last several months she's been your chauffeur, your watchdog, your right hand, your advocate, and now your guardian's daughter."

Mulder rocked a little in the chair, his jaw pulsing now. "I've told you twice, she's my friend. We work together."

"At the risk of joining you in repetition, Mulder, you don't work with Scully any more. You may not work with her again for quite some time. You have to take that out of the picture." He let the silence settle for a few moments. Mulder seemed mesmerized by this suggestion, which surprised Kennedy; this thing must be deeper than he had suspected, if Mulder couldn't shrug it off with a series of jokes or a cocksure denial. Kennedy lowered his voice, and repeated his question. "How would you describe your relationship with Dana?"

Mulder stared unseeing at the front of Kennedy's desk. His voice came out as a whisper, as if unbidden. "Essential." He started rocking again.

Kennedy paused before speaking again. "Are you afraid that essence has been hurt in some way?"

Now Mulder looked up, his face ashen. The voice was very small. "I don't know. I hope not. I don't know what I would do if she . . .."

Dr. Kennedy lowered his voice one more half-notch. "If she what?"

Mulder's face firmed, and his voice found itself again. "If she didn't want to be with me." His gaze steadied, and his eyes warmed again with the conviction of the words. The statement seemed to resolve something for him. Dr. Kennedy waited for Mulder to volunteer the next piece of the puzzle, wondering if he'd seen it yet or would be willing to name it if he had. "Or if I didn't want to be with her. I--I haven't had much to hold on to. If this . . . thing--the accident, what I tried to do to myself--meant losing that trust, for me or for her . . .."

"Yes?"

Mulder leaned back in his chair with a long sigh, running his hand through his hair. "Before they assigned Scully to the X Files, all I had was my work. We've talked about my parents, you know how that was. There was no one I was truly close to. It was something I avoided. I've understood that about myself for a long time." He paused. "But she changed that. It probably would have happened with anybody assigned to me who stuck around; you were right about the intense pressure and the trust. What I wonder about is whether anybody else would have stuck around. I've certainly done more than enough to drive most people away, but I just can't seem to get rid of her." He grimaced at that.

"Do you think you've tried?"

"What?"

"Tried to get rid of her."

"I don't know. Maybe. Probably, on some level, just to see how much she would take. Yeah."

"But it didn't work, did it?"

Mulder grinned. "Nope. Must be my charm."

"I don't think I'd go that far."

Mulder laughed, then; a good sound. Mulder was a man who appreciated people who could see through him, even if he didn't always like it when they did. "Maybe I'm just lucky. Or maybe she's not as sane and sensible as she looks. Don't ask me to explain it."

"Seriously, Mulder. Have you ever considered what Dana's feelings are where you're concerned?"

Again that furtive, you-can't-see-my-marbles look. "No. I don't understand why she's still there, how can I know what she feels?"

"Humor me, Mulder. Take a stab at it."

Mulder opened his mouth, and shut it again.

"When was the last time you saw her?" Both men knew that Kennedy didn't need to ask that question, but doing so was one way to respect what shreds of privacy the patients still had while living on this ward.

"She took a really long lunch and came in today to eat with me." He started to smile.

"What's so funny about that?"

"We joked about the food here. I told her she was lucky she still had a choice, and she said she'd think of me over her next cup of coffee. That woman can be cruel."

"How did she seem? How are things going for her?"

Mulder sobered. "She looked tired. She's been pulling long hours at Quantico, and all the business with my little visit here has taken a lot out of her, too. She tried to hide it, but I had to say something. She had an answer ready, she must have known it would make me feel guilty. She looked me right in the eye and poked a fork in my direction and told me to forget it, she wanted to see me and that was it. How _I_ felt about it was beside the point. She was just grateful you're letting me use utensils now."

"Well, you have earned a few privileges," Kennedy said drily. "You're responsible enough with furniture and sharp edges to be in this office unrestrained, aren't you? You've come a long way, Mulder."

"Not long enough. Any chance of me getting out of here for Christmas? It's only two more weeks, I've been keeping track."

Kennedy smiled. Both men knew the importance of a patient's ability to assess the passage of time. "You just keep answering my questions and don't do anything to make me revoke your privileges, and we'll see. I think you're aware of how well you handle your flashbacks now." He paused, watching relief and encouragement replace the brief twinge of pain that crossed Mulder's face before he nodded in acknowledgment. "But yes, I think we're on schedule for what we discussed with Margaret and Assistant Director Skinner last week." If all went well, Mulder would be released for the holidays to live with Margaret as a trial; if that was satisfactory, he would be allowed to go to his own apartment with a live-in aide. Any decisions about going back to work would be made after home living was deemed a success. "So I guess it sounds like you don't have to worry about Dana not wanting to be with you, doesn't it, if she insists on it?"

The mention of his partner made Mulder uneasy again. "I guess so. I know she made *me* feel better." Now the furtive look Mulder gave his doctor was inverted: wanting to know what the other guy's marbles were. "She--she came to see you."

Kennedy nodded, and relaxed his posture, giving the visual cue of openness to the question. "Yes. I think it was a valuable session."

"You--I know you can't disclose one 'patient's' session to another. But . . ..?"

"Are you wondering if my time with her is why I'm asking you the questions about her that I am today?"

Mulder nodded.

"That's only reasonable. I can give you an answer that won't compromise any confidences. That answer would be: No, or only in a small sense. Speaking with her confirmed a decision I'd already made about wanting to discuss this aspect of your relationship with you. Her perspective on your suicide attempts, and on your partnership with her, was helpful." Mulder received that with a silent nod, his face closed over the questions he wanted to ask. "If it helps any, Mulder, I believe you can be assured that Scully's desire to see you is neither faked nor exaggerated in any way. If there's anyone who wants you out of here, whole and well and by her side again, it's your friend Dana Scully."

Mulder nodded yet again, and smiled. "Thanks, doc. You're a pal."

"Just doing my job, Mulder. You keep up the good work, and I'll keep giving you the good news." He paused a moment. "Before we go, I'd like your impressions of the home health aide candidates we've seen so far. Do you have a preference?"

Mulder grinned. "I think I like that guy Mark . . . Stromberg, that was the name. He has a sense of humor. He'll need it, living with me."

"Just remember that whoever we choose won't be your adversary. You won't be doing yourself any favors if you think of this as a contest between you and the people trying to help you. From the medications to the diet to the check-ins, this is all about getting you back your life, and all of it is necessary. You're the only one who can make that happen."

"Yes, sir, doctor, sir. Understood, sir. On the road to recovery, slow and steady. One day at a time, God grant me the serenity."

Yes, Mulder was definitely feeling like himself now; that grin had almost become a smirk. The doctor wouldn't have been surprised to see a few canary feathers drift out of his mouth with those words. Although Kennedy was confident now of Mulder's determination and ability to succeed, he remained concerned that the man's long habits of ignoring official standards--"trust no one"--might result in some foolhardy decision to evade part or all of the restrictions governing his recovery. Kennedy saw through the window in the door that the aide had already arrived for the scheduled end of Mulder's session. The doctor stood, and Mulder followed suit, turning to go back out onto the ward.


	7. Chapter 7

**Georgetown University Medical Center**   
** Acute Psychiatric Ward**   
** 2:27 p.m., December 22**

Mulder stood looking out the floor-to-ceiling window, his hands hanging loosely next to the pockets of his slacks. He'd spent more hours than he cared to think about looking out this window during the past forty-seven days. Initially, because he would stand here until someone turned him around and made him walk back. Then, because it let him isolate himself and avoid confronting the reasons for his suicide attempts. Later, it had been the place he came to, to confront and deal with those reasons.

Today, he was looking for Scully and her mother. He'd said his goodbyes after lunch--"Don't take this wrong, but I hope I never see you again."--and packed his suitcase. Dr. Kennedy and his treatment team had agreed that if he made it through Christmas at Margaret's house, he would stay there till New Year's. If he made it through New Year's, he would go to his own apartment with Mark Stromberg--the only one of the three psychiatric home health aides he'd met who had seemed even remotely likable--to supervise him full time. If he made it for two weeks at home, then Dr. Kennedy would decide when he could go back to work. There was _no _discussion about when he could petition the court to have Margaret's Guardianship removed.

He _would_ make it. He was _not _coming back here. Dr. Kennedy had promised that because the two suicide attempts were the direct result of his work, he would never have to do another profile. He'd never have to look inside the twisted soul of another serial killer, never have to understand that killer well enough to be able to figure out his whats, wheres, whens, and whys. He'd . . ..

He stopped himself. By summer he'd be back at the X-Files, and until then he'd cope with whatever Skinner assigned him to do. He'd done that for all the months when Scully was missing, hadn't he? He could do it with one hand tied behind his back this time, because she'd be at Quantico, a phone call away.

Where _were_ they? He glanced at his watch, suddenly worried. Was he wrong? Was this all a fantasy he'd woven, and, instead of getting a pass, with a full discharge very likely within ten days, was he actually being transferred to St. Elizabeth's, to spend the rest of his life under lock and key?

"Fox?"

Startled, he jumped and spun around. Margaret Scully was dressed in a heavy coat still speckled with water droplets where the snow flakes had melted. Her hair, too, had the water droplets, creating the illusion of tiny gemstones half-hidden in her gray- streaked black hair. "Where's Scully?" he said anxiously. Scully would be here if he was leaving. Margaret would come alone if she had something to tell him as his Guardian. He--

Margaret placed a hand on his arm. "Fox, _relax. _Everything's OK. Dana's at the financial office downstairs, handling your paperwork. She'll meet us at the main entrance. Are you ready to go?"

He nodded, finally believing he was leaving. "My suitcase is at the nurses' station. Did you bring my coat?"

She, too, nodded, angling her head in that pointing movement people used when their arms were full or their hands were in their pockets. "I left it in the Day Room." As they headed back that way, she asked, "Your medicines?"

He picked his coat off a chair back. Before answering her he knocked on the window at the nurses' station because no one was visible. "I'll have a ten-day supply and prescriptions for after that. They won't let me have them myself. You or Scully have to keep them."

The RN, Lucy, came hurrying from the back. "Mulder, Mrs. Scully; I'm sorry, I was on the phone. You're ready to go then?" She held the door to the nurses' station open with one foot as she reached under the desk to pull out his suitcase. "Here you go." She took a small paper bag off the desk and handed it to Margaret. "Mrs. Scully, you need to count these and sign the receipt. Mulder knows his medicines, but as we discussed--"

Margaret nodded, interrupting her. "If he doesn't ask for his medicines within one hour either side of their scheduled times, we offer them and write it down. If he refuses any offered dose, or misses asking for any three doses, then he has to come back." She took the bag, tipping out the unit-dose cards, quickly checked them against the list, and signed the receipt. As she slid the cards back in, she said, "There won't be any problems. Fox is not going to forget." Her glance at him was not a question or a command, but one of quiet confidence.

He shrugged on his coat, wanting to be _out of here. _He hadn't been anywhere since he'd woken up but this ward and, last week with two aides accompanying him, to the various departments for the tests Dr. Carrington had ordered for his six-month post- injury check up. Suddenly he wanted very much to smell fresh air, feel the sharp sting of snowflakes on his face, and shiver in the cold air outside.

Lucy walked them to the ward door, checked over her shoulder that no patients were close by, then unlocked the door. "Good luck, Mulder. As you said, I hope I never see you again--at least on this side of this door."

* * *

**Margaret Scully's house**   
** 6:00 a.m., December 23**

Scully lay on her childhood bed, trying to ignore the urges of her body. After talking with Dr. Theodopolous on November 12, she'd decided to change her exercise routine. Regular work-outs were important for a decidedly petite Field Agent who at any moment might have to deal with a recalcitrant suspect--or a liver-eating mutant, she reminded herself--but she wouldn't need that same level of fitness in the Pathology labs and classrooms. On the other hand, standing and sitting all day in those same laboratories and classrooms had wreaked havoc with her cardiovascular capacity, and turned her legs into noodles. She pooped out after running up two flights of stairs, for heaven's sake!

So she'd started running, not jogging. Then, on December 7, "a day that will live in infamy", she'd gotten her first runner's high. She'd found that rush of endorphins exhilarating, but nothing she couldn't live without. Now, after eleven straight days of that same rush of endorphins, she admitted defeat. She was addicted, as addicted to it as Mulder was. If she didn't get up, NOW, and go running, she'd be snappy and irritable all day. That was not something to inflict on Mulder on his first full day out of the hospital.

She shoved the covers back, made a quick trip to the toilet, then dressed in layers for her run. The snow had quit about the time they'd left the hospital yesterday. There should be very little still left to interfere with her run. She grabbed her regular running shoes and stuffed an extra pair of socks in her pocket, just in case.

She was quiet heading downstairs, not wanting to wake her mom or Mulder. It was only 6:05, and they both deserved to sleep in after the awkwardness of Mulder's "homecoming" and then their mutual fears that he would have nightmares again because he was back in Margaret's house. Apparently he hadn't, and Dana wouldn't shower or eat until she returned, so a tip-toe down the stairs, shoes in hand, was in order.

Mulder was already up, dressed in sweats and running shoes, his usual clothes from the hospital. He stood in the darkened living room. From the slump of his shoulders as he stood looking out the picture window at the street outside, she thought he was remembering.

She didn't want that, so she walked across the room toward him, deliberately stepping on the one squeaky spot. Her father and brothers, and even she and her mother, had spent fruitless hours trying to tighten the loose flooring there. Eventually they'd given up, deciding to call the occasional visitor-induced screech "the Scully ghost".

Mulder turned at the sound, smiling. "Trying to warn me, Scully? It wasn't necessary." He pointed his chin at the staircase, then a thumb over his shoulder. "The upstairs hall light was enough to let me see your reflection in the window."

He really looked at her then, and his expression turned wistful. "Jogging? I wish . . .." He trailed off, then shook his head and smiled again. "Be careful. It's probably icy in patches."

As she was tying her shoes, she said, "Why don't you come? If we take a short circular route, we can run together until you're tired, then I can finish my daily five miles." It never occurred to her the impact her words would have.

He stopped dead at the front door, one hand turning the door knob, then put that hand down, turned back to her, and said, with "I told you so" glee in his voice, "_Daily_? _This_ from the doctor who keeps telling me that doing the exact same exercises every day is actually bad for you, because it never gives your body time to completely recover? _Five _miles? _This _from the partner who says _no one _needs to run that far, because if you can't catch the perp in less than a mile, you'll never catch him? _This_ from the doctor/partner who tells me, _every _time I'm laid up and can't run, to just 'relax'? That I can't _possibly_ feel that out-of-sorts just because I didn't get my daily runner's high?"

He was out the door and partway up the street before she even cleared the front porch. But she had the last word, so to speak. She caught him within a quarter mile, when he staggered to an exhausted halt. They walked until he'd caught his breath, then jogged the rest of a mile, ending up back at the house. Then she took off again at full speed while he went up the driveway to where her mother was waiting, smiling and holding the door open for him.

* * *

**9:50 p.m., December 24**

Scully watched from the bottom stair step. Mulder was relaxed, obviously enjoying himself, and deeply engrossed in the discussion he was having with her brothers and their wives. This was a Mulder she had never seen before. It was like he was . . . oh, she didn't know. Maybe on vacation? No, Mulder didn't _do_ vacations. He went UFO hunting, or searching for information about his still-missing sister. Maybe a quiet evening with friends? No, not that either; The Lone Gunmen would _never_ talk this openly about themselves, and she didn't know of any other friends that were close enough for him to relax this much. Maybe . . ..

Her hand went to her mouth to stifle the gasp of recognition. Like he had come home for the Christmas/New Year's holiday, and was catching up on all the family gossip. Like he was the brother whose job kept him away more than he wanted, or--or like the brother-in-law who lived too far away for them to visit regularly.

She didn't have time to pursue that thought, because just then Mom appeared in the kitchen doorway, drying her hands on a dishtowel, and announced, "OK, everything's put away. It's K.P. time. Who's up tonight?"

It was hysterical; Mulder had _no_ idea what that announcement meant in this family. Her brothers were out of their seats and "fighting" to get out the front door before Mulder could even open his mouth to ask.

She took pity on him; coming into the dining room, she said, "C'mon, Mulder. We'll do the dishes tonight, then one of _them_ can do them after Christmas dinner tomorrow."

The noise at the door stopped abruptly. Her sisters-in-law were laughing; Mary was laughing so hard she almost fell out of her chair. Then Bill, Jr. said fervently, "Shi--. Uh, sorry, Mom."

Mulder looked at her in total confusion. Grabbing his hand, she pulled him to his feet and headed into the kitchen, explaining as she went. "Last one left at the table when Mom announces it has to do the dishes. It used to be just us kids; now the spouse helps. But I don't think it's fair to make you do dishes for everyone, so I'll help. Besides, as I said, we do them today, we don't have to do them tomorrow, and there will be a lot more dishes then."

He hand-washed her Grandmother's china and crystal while she dried because it was easier than her telling him where everything went. Coffee had been served after her nieces and nephews were put to bed, so it was nearly eleven by the time they finished. Mulder's hands were red and wrinkled, and his shirt sleeves, even rolled up as they were, were soaked in spots. He'd filled the dishpan with clean water several times, and there were still quite a few suds left after his last load.

She was on tip-toe, reaching up to put away the pie pans she'd gotten out of the dishwasher, when she felt a sudden wetness on her back. She turned to look at him, asking, "Wha--?"

She got a handful of blown suds right between her breasts. Then he scooped another handful and started blowing at her face. Stepping smartly back, she snatched the dishtowel off the counter and snapped it expertly at him, missing the hand in front of his mouth by mere inches, causing him to quickly back up. "Oh, no you don't, Mulder. Give it up now; I've had _years _of experience. Besides . . .." She darted forward to the sink and sploshed a handful of the dishpan water at him, "we both know how much time you spend in the kitchen. You can't win, so don't even try."

He stood there, shirt-front completely soaked, water dripping onto his pants, his shoes, and the kitchen floor, with a completely dumbfounded expression on his face. Then he got a strange look on his face and started stalking her, hands outstretched and fingers wiggling. "I'm gonna get you for that, Scully. You just wait! I bet I can find ALL your ticklish spots."

She broke and ran, abruptly unable to play the game any longer. There had been one time when her brothers had ganged up on her, tickling until she was actually in tears. Ahab rescued her, and the boys never tickled her again, but to this day she couldn't stand even the thought of being tickled.

She wasn't looking where she was going and came to a stop by the simple expedient of running into Bill Jr.'s solid body standing just outside the kitchen doorway. He put an arm around her to keep her from falling and said, "I thought you two _worked _together . . .."

Scully stiffened in embarrassment and Bill gave her an encouraging hug. She knew she was probably scarlet, and wondered what color Mulder was--not that she'd dare turn around to look at him. Then, to her undying relief, Bill continued as if nothing had happened in here.

"Tickling's 'verboten', Mulder; sorry. On the other hand, pillow fights aren't--if you're willing to clean up the feathers afterward and sew the pillow back together!" Then he gave her shoulder another squeeze, let go of her, and changed the subject. "We're going to Midnight Mass; it's traditional in the Scully family. You're invited, of course, but you don't have to if you feel uncomfortable about going to a Catholic church."

Mulder immediately became serious. None of the family knew that he'd been in the hospital again, let alone on the psych ward--and for nearly two months. They simply thought her partner had finally agreed to spend the holiday with them. She waited to see how he would react, ready to step in and explain if necessary. But Mulder, uncomfortable as he looked to her, handled the question easily.

"Thanks, Bill, but I can't. I just got out of the hospital a couple of days ago, and I still have to take a sleeping pill every night. I'm ready to take tonight's; by the time you leave, I'll be asleep. But if you go to services tomorrow, I'd like to join you."

Bill nodded and looked down at her. "What about you, shrimp?" Bill wasn't even six feet tall, yet he'd been calling her "shrimp" since he was fifteen. There was no way she'd ever be able to break him of the habit; she could only hope that Mulder wouldn't decide to use the nickname also.

She looked the question at Mulder. Mom wouldn't miss Midnight Mass for any reason, so she'd been planning to stay home even though Bill's oldest, Cathy, was supposed to babysit the youngest kids. But if he really meant to take his pill now, he would be asleep before they left, and she could go. If he didn't mind.

He nodded. "Sure, go ahead, Scully. You don't have to stay. I won't even know you're gone."

"Then I'll go change, Bill. This--" she held her wet shirt-front out, "--is no longer proper attire for church."

But she'd still check on Mulder before she left, to make sure he had taken the pill. The medicine he took put him so deeply asleep for the first three or four hours that he nearly couldn't be awakened. After that, his sleep gradually lightened, and he awoke naturally in the morning. She had only thought of this as being dangerous, in case there was an emergency. Now she realized that it gave her and Mom some freedom, some time when they didn't _have_ to be aware of where Mulder was and what he was doing.

* * *

**7:00 p.m., December 25**

Mulder watched as the last Scullys left, Andrea shooing the twins in front of her, Charles hanging back to give his mother one final hug. It had been decidedly strange, being here for Christmas. Christmas at Oxford had been very British, with December 26, Boxing Day, just as important for most of his friends, if only because that's when they opened their presents. His own family hadn't been anywhere near this religious, his mother being a High-Holy-Days-only Jew, and his father a mostly- lapsed Episcopalian. He and Samantha had been brought up in the Reformed Jewish tradition, but he had given up on God and religion the night Samantha had been abducted. Yet he hadn't felt like an outsider here; they had all accepted him unconditionally, even the kids, letting him participate, or watch, or leave when he felt uncomfortable.

The mass today had reminded him of Rosh Hashanah services. Not that they were anything alike, of course, but the mood of the congregation was the same. The same reverence and anticipation were there, the same feeling of a community coming together to celebrate one of the most important holy days of the year.

And Father Pulaski had definitely reminded him of Rabbi Isaacs. Short, slightly overweight, hair reduced to a white fringe around the back of his head, thick dark eyebrows over thick black-framed glasses, deep gravelly voice that still carried an accent after however-many years living in America, eyes that could see into your soul and know your pain and joy, and a sermon that made you _know_ that everything would be all right if you simply turned yourself over to God and let Him take care of you.

Only he knew that wasn't true. It hadn't been true when Samantha was abducted. It hadn't been true when Scully disappeared and when her sister Melissa was killed. It hadn't been true when his father was killed and when his mother had her stroke. And it most decidedly had NOT been true when he had had to get inside Warren Richardson's sewer of a mind and tell Scully--

_"And it's hi-ho-hey, I am the bold marauder. It's hi-ho-hey, I am the white destroyer."_

The words came unbidden, threatening to destroy him as they had already nearly done more than once. He slammed his fist on the padded arm of the couch, trying to break the train of thought. It didn't work. He would _not _sit here and remember any of that terrible night. With a barely muffled curse he jumped up, heading for the stairs and his room. He would change and go running, leave all the horror behind him, and come back here ready to face Scully and Margaret again.

When he came down, Scully was there in front of him, not letting him get to the front door. He spun away and headed for the back door, and Margaret was there.

"No, Fox. You can't out-run it. You'll never be able to do that.

"What did we talk about during your treatment team meetings, Fox? If you don't face the horror, admit that it exists and that _you _can understand the killer well enough to live his crime in order to catch him, then you'll never be able put that horror aside and go on with your life. Face it, accept it, or it will haunt you for the rest of your life, coming out to ambush you again and again like it did tonight."

Her voice was so gentle and compassionate he didn't stand a chance. With a desperate sob he flung himself into her arms and let her hold him while he cried and railed at the injustice of a God that would give him the power to stop the monsters, but would not grant him the mercy to be able to forget what he had to go through in order to stop them.

And when she and Scully helped him upstairs to bed, he asked Scully to give him the Ativan that made the world go away so quickly he didn't even have time to worry that he might do something he'd regret tomorrow.


	8. Chapter 8

**Georgetown University Medical Center**   
** Medical Annex**   
** Dr. John Kennedy's office**   
** 4:45 p.m., December 26**

"Do you want to go back in the hospital, Mulder?" It was the third time Dr. Kennedy had asked him that question since he'd walked in fifteen minutes ago. This time he answered it.

"Yes!" He reached the end of the room and started back again. "No! Oh, I don't know any more!" He reached the other end of the room, turned around, and put his back to the wall. He stared at Dr. Kennedy for nearly a minute before he realized that he'd ended up not directly across the room but in a corner, a more defensible position, and that his fists were clenched tightly enough at his sides to hurt. He made himself relax, then said flatly, "The _only_ reason I took my medicines this morning was that Margaret said you were able to fit me in this afternoon."

Dr. Kennedy nodded, but didn't directly acknowledge his challenge. Instead he said, "Do you really need that externally imposed control or do you want to go back just because it's easier than staying in control yourself?" Then he leaned back in his chair, watching him dispassionately, making no effort to help him calm down. That attitude had infuriated him at times and had been the only thing that let him keep his self-respect at other times.

This was one of the times it infuriated him. He flung himself at the desk, leaning over it to glare at the doctor. "I _am_ in control, God damn it! I'm here talking to you, aren't I, instead of having locked myself in the bathroom and slit my throat. Is it too much to ask that you at least _try _to find some way to take the crystal-clear edges off that memory? Why won't you let me have the Compazine? It worked the first time; let me take it again and get rid of this nightmare before I really do go insane, because I can't stand remembering, and I _don't_ want to die, and THERE'S NO OTHER CHOICE!" He was screaming and pounding on the desk at the end, but he didn't care. He _had _to make the doctor understand.

Kennedy didn't answer. He waited silently until Mulder made himself sit down and apologize for his behavior. Then he said, "You know the reason. You tell me."

Defeated, he slumped in the chair and muttered, "The potential for irreversible side effects is too high. With just the three low doses of Compazine I took the first time, I already had pseudo-Parkinson tremor. If I take any of the anti-psychotics with a high potential for extrapyramidal symptoms, I risk permanent problems." He couldn't look up at the psychiatrist. Instead he stared at the wrinkles in his right pant-leg, smoothing them over and over with his fingers. Finally, more than ten minutes later, still without looking up, he asked, "Can we _please_ try something other than just leaving me on the Risperdal?"

Dr. Kennedy's voice was brisk this time, as if he was already mentally three steps ahead and had to hurry to catch up. "You'll need to go in the hospital--_not _the psych ward--for a few days. Some people react very badly to Clozaril, even to the extremely low starting dose. Also, there's mandatory weekly blood work to make sure your white blood cells aren't being killed off."

Surprised at being told he didn't have to go back on the psych ward, especially after his outburst, Mulder stared at his doctor. Finally he was able to say, "Thank you. Like Margaret said last night, if I don't accept the memories, I'll be living in fear of being ambushed by them for the rest of my life. But accepting the memories doesn't mean that I want them to be so sharp, so perfect." At last he could let go of the fear that Dr. Kennedy wouldn't help him and that he would have no choice but to kill himself to gain the peace he so desperately needed.

There was a comfortable silence for a moment before Dr. Kennedy said, "I'll call the hospital and tell them you're coming in now. Then as soon as I close up here I'll come over. They can do the preliminary blood work tonight and you can have the first dose tomorrow morning. If there are no problems, you'll be out by Tuesday at the latest."

* * *

**FBI Headquarters**   
** Assistant Director Walter Skinner's office**   
** 8:15 a.m., January 19**

Skinner stood up, waving him to a seat. "It's good to have you back, Agent Mulder. I understand you spent the holidays with Agent Scully and her mother. Did you have a nice time?"

Mulder knew that wasn't what Skinner really wanted to know, so he answered the implied questions. "I'm doing fine, sir. I've been out of the hospital a month now, my 'keeper' is tolerable--he's a neatnik, my apartment is cleaner than it's ever been,"--he grinned because it was so funny: Mark had thrown up his hands in mock despair, then "made" him clean the entire place, using liberal applications of sarcasm and lots of his own elbow grease- -"and I really did enjoy staying with Margaret again. I'm doing well, sir. I'm glad to be back at work."

Skinner nodded, leaning back in his chair. Now that they'd finished the mandatory small talk, he would get down to business. "I've read your doctors' reports. Why don't you tell me about them?"

Mulder shrugged. It was no big deal. "Dr. Carrington couldn't find anything to account for the two incidents, and all my tests were normal at my six-month checkup in December. I'll see her at the one-year anniversary, but other than that, I'm discharged.

"Dr. Kennedy thinks they were stress related. I'm officially forbidden to ever do another profile. I don't object to that in the least, sir. I never liked doing them, I'm just incredibly good at them.

"I can't have my gun back until I've been off all my medicines and totally symptom-free for three months. I figure that'll be in late June, at the rate Dr. Kennedy is willing to taper me off the Zoloft--that's the anti-depressant." He didn't bother mentioning the Clozaril, because he would be off it by the end of this month. "He said if nothing happens, in a month or so we can talk about my no longer needing to be supervised here and at home, and getting my driver's license back. In any case, I'll be seeing him for at least six months, maybe a year.

"For now, I can work anywhere I'm assigned--except, I suppose, the X-Files. I doubt you'll let me have those back until I'm off all medical restrictions. You already know how closely I need to be supervised and the legal implications of Margaret Scully being my Guardian."

Skinner was silent for several minutes before asking, "What does Agent Scully think about this?"

Startled, Mulder stared at his boss. "Scu . . . Scully, sir? Why are you asking me?"

"She's _your _partner, Agent Mulder. What does she think about going back to work with you? Does she think you'll be able to handle the X-Files again?" Skinner was looking at him like a student staring at a lab rat in a maze. Which way would he turn at the intersection? Left and gain the reward? Or right and get shocked by the electric grid under the cage?

"I . . . we . . . haven't talked about it, sir. I'm assuming we'll pretty much pick up where we left off."

Skinner nodded, was quiet for a moment, then figuratively threw a live grenade in his lap. "Agent Scully's work these past seven months has been exemplary, especially considering the stress she's been under, worrying about you and having to deal with her own reactions to what's happened. She's been noticed, and at the beginning of the year was offered a permanent position at Quantico. That would take her out of the field, shift her back into the teaching and research track. As you know, some agents prefer this, others don't, and there is no stigma attached to rejecting such a transfer. She has until January 31 to turn in her decision. I expect you two to discuss this, Agent Mulder, and I expect to have your plans for the future of the X-Files Division by that same date.

"As for your next assignment--you're assigned to the X-Files, to close out the paperwork on all outstanding cases, make recommendations on all cases that were referred since you were injured, including possible agents to investigate those cases, and, in general, get the division in shape to be either re-opened eventually or closed down now, depending on what you and Agent Scully decide. You may request Agent Scully's assistance to help you close out the existing cases, but whether she will be able to help you will depend on her current case load.

"I don't think I need to remind you, Agent Mulder, that you are restricted to this building--you may not go _anywhere _else on any Bureau-related business without my express permission. That restriction won't be lifted until you re-qualify at the Academy, which you can't do until I have Dr. Kennedy's medical release.

"Dismissed."

His dismissal was so abrupt he sat there for at least fifteen seconds before he could mentally catch up. Then he stood up and left Skinner's office, walking numbly into the main hallways of the building.

* * *

**F.B.I. Headquarters**   
** Underground Parking Garage**   
** 4:55 p.m., January 20**

Mulder was dead tired, not really watching where he was going. It was hard to believe that just doing paperwork could be so tiring, but he hadn't thought about these X-Files in seven months, and with his eidetic memory, remembering them became an exercise in weeding out the important information from the unbelievable number of ordinary little incidents that filled his days. Add to that the fact that Dr. Kennedy had extended Dr. Carrington's prohibition against caffeine and chocolate, and you had one exhausted FBI Agent. So exhausted, in fact, that by Monday afternoon when Scully had finally returned his call, he had begged off on talking to her about re-opening the X-Files till next Monday. He'd also, definitely not jokingly, asked if she had the time to help him. But she was swamped, having been on vacation since he got out of the hospital just before Christmas. It was her first extended vacation in five years and he'd left her alone once he moved home with Mark Stromberg. He'd be closing out the ten open cases himself.

He was sure Skinner had thought that closing out these cases and handling the thirty-one referred ones would take him a few days, maybe a week, tops. Long enough for him to stamp "UNSOLVED" across every one of them, because he couldn't close the old cases and wouldn't want to turn any of the new ones over to other agents, and long enough for Skinner to find someone who'd be willing to take him for the five months until he could go back to the X-Files. But at the rate he was working he figured Skinner would have at least a couple of months to find that someone. He smiled cynically to himself. Enough time to prove that he wasn't crazy and he wasn't suicidal and he wasn't going to have another of those "episodes". Because if frustration was the trigger, before the week was out he was likely to be at least as frustrated as he had been those two times.

If only real FBI work was as linear and straightforward as TV shows made it out to be. One case at a time, solve it, take a day or a week to do paperwork and catch up with the bureaucratic nonsense that came across his and Scully's desks while they were gone, then go on to the next case. Instead, there was the reality of anywhere up to thirty cases going simultaneously, most of them X-Files, some of them other agents' cases where he or Scully or both of them had been asked to help. Thank God he hadn't been scheduled to testify in court during the last seven months. In any case, the six outside cases they'd been helping out on in June had been taken care of by the assigned agents, and Scully had, at some point while he was in the CCU, finished her notes on their ten open X-Files. Once it became apparent that he would recover, however, she hadn't been able to close their cases, because they were officially his, as head of the department.

It would have been nice if he could have closed them in August, when he first came back to work. But that had been out of the question. He wasn't allowed to take the subway or the bus then because of the danger of falling or bumping his head against something--as well as his intolerance to glare at that time--and the cost of a cab to and from Headquarters every day had been vetoed by Workers' Comp. Initially they'd said he could car pool to work with someone, forgetting the simple fact that he couldn't work more than two or three hours in an eight-hour day. Then they had just about freaked when they actually went to look at his office. _Alone_? In the _basement_? With all those sharp edges?! What if he _fell_?! On top of that, the Academy had a fully- equipped Infirmary, and Headquarters had nothing more than a few strategically placed basic first-aid kits. So the cases had simply waited, unsolved, unclosed, until now.

He didn't hear or see the approach of the two men who slammed him backwards against one of the pillars. He felt them holding him against that cold concrete and for one terrifying second he was back on the psychiatric ward, being restrained till the nurse could come with the Ativan. Then he was even more terrified, because he knew he was in no condition to fight anyone off. A month out of the hospital could not possibly make up for seven weeks on the psych ward, which came after almost five months of hospitalization and desk work--and no "contact sports" allowed.

A forearm was pressed across his throat, not enough to hurt or cut off his air, but a definite threat. A whispered voice said, "We know, and you know, you're in no shape to resist us. We can discuss this like gentlemen or we can go somewhere and we'll beat the shit out of you until you _have _to listen. Which will it be?"

He made himself relax in their grip, swallowed, and said, "Talk. But it better be short. If I don't meet Mark exactly on time, he has orders to--"

"Yeah, we know about that, too. This'll be real short." The two men shifted their holds, immobilizing him with a leg in front of each of his shins to block him from kicking, their bodies pressed against his, and their hands on his arms above and below his elbows, keeping them flat against the pillar. They were as competent at it as the people who worked at the hospital. He wouldn't let himself think about the possibility that they were two of those psychiatric aides.

A third man, wearing a ski mask and goggles, came from the left, holding an aluminum baseball bat which he repeatedly slapped against one glove-covered palm. "Remember me, Mulder? Or am I one of the things you lost in the retrograde amnesia? Well, it doesn't matter. What does matter is this--" the man stepped forward and, very carefully, laid the bat against the right side of his head, "--you didn't _really _think that was a random carjacking, did you? Some punk comes along, slams you upside the head, does it _again, _and you _live_? Come off it, Mulder. It takes an artist to do that kind of work. _I_ do that kind of work. And the police report was wrong; you _didn't _get your arm up in time to protect yourself. I did that little piece of misdirection last."

The bat tapped him lightly, much too lightly to actually hurt, but he couldn't help himself. He flinched away, futilely trying to get his arms up to protect his head. The hands holding his arms tightened so quickly and so strongly he knew he'd have twenty separate bruises from their fingers and thumbs. So he stood still and closed his eyes in resignation. The man would do whatever he wanted, and there was absolutely nothing he could do about it.

The bat hit his forehead hard enough to bounce his head off the pillar and make him see the stars everyone talked about. "_LOOK _at me when I talk to you."

His eyes flew open and he stared at the man. What difference did it make? There was no way to identify him because of the ski mask and goggles he wore. He couldn't even see any skin to know his race. His height was about 5'6", his weight "slender", but more accuracy than that was impossible because of the bulky parka he wore. His voice was as generic as TV announcers' used to be, back when the networks thought the viewers wouldn't trust anyone with an identifiable accent. The man was as close to a non-entity as he could be, given that he was an artist with his chosen weapon.

"The message is this: Go back to doing profiles. Stay there, no matter what your psychiatrist says. It's much healthier for you than _anywhere _else in the Bureau, especially the X-Files. What I did once, I can do again. Only I guarantee you won't walk away undamaged this time. So think about it. And make the right decision."

The three men were gone before he could even try to think of a reply, leaving behind the bat, and him to slide down the pillar because his legs refused to hold him up any longer.

He was still there, one leg under him and the other splayed out in front, blood dripping onto the back of his coat collar from the cut on his head, when one of the security teams found him. They didn't touch him or talk to him--probably afraid the psycho would go off like a rocket, he thought scornfully--just called in the report and waited till Skinner and Mark Stromberg came running over.

Mark knelt down next to him. "Mulder! What's wrong? Did you have another--?"

He shook his head, very slightly, and groaned with the instant headache that tiny movement brought. "N--" He cleared his throat, tried again. "No." His voice was shaky, but he thought they would be able to understand him. "Th--three men. One had that . . . that . . .." it was almost too much for him to say, but he forced the words out, "baseball bat. He said he . . . he would do it again, if I didn't close down the X-Files." The last few words came out in a rush, then he simply closed his eyes and let the fear course through him, no longer making even a pretense of trying to control his shaking.

* * *

**Georgetown University Medical Center**   
** Emergency Department**   
** 5:50 p.m.**

The curtain to his cubicle swished open. Mulder didn't bother opening his eyes. He already knew what the doctor would say. He was spending the night here. With a concussion and his head injury still a lot less than a year old, he knew the doctor wouldn't let him go home, even with Mark to check on him every couple of hours.

"We have to stop meeting like this, Agent Mulder. It's bad for our reputations."

Startled both by her chuckle and the fact that it was Dr. Carrington, not the ER physician who'd examined him, he said, "What?!" and tried to sit up. That was a mistake of epic proportions because, on top of the headache, the room immediately started spinning around him. Damn. A Major League concussion, not a Minor League one, to stay with the baseball theme, from one little--well, not so little--tap by a baseball bat.

Dr. Carrington was right next to him when he opened his eyes again. She definitely looked unhappy. "You're concussed. You do know that, don't you? Or do I have to run more tests to convince you?"

"It's quite obvious to me, thank you very much. I'm perfectly willing to spend the night right here on this ER bed. But if you insist I take a regular bed, I'd appreciate it, a _lot, _if you have something in your bag of tricks for the vertigo. Otherwise, I'll probably vomit all over everything when they start to move me from here into that bed."

She shook her head. "Sorry, no can do. I don't want to mask any further signs or symptoms, on the off-chance that this actually is more than a concussion. I can offer a suggestion you're not going to like, though."

He looked at her suspiciously. "OK, I'll bite. What do you suggest I do? Try to sit up so fast I pass out before I can vomit?"

She smiled but shook her head. "No, not hardly. I was going to suggest that you grin and bear it."

"What the--" He bit off the expletive, then said, "You're right; I don't like it." When she didn't say anything he asked, "So when should I do this song and dance?"

That brought another smile to her face. "You can start doing it now, if you want. The orderly is just outside, waiting to take you upstairs."

He resigned himself to the inevitable, then remembered all the people who would be worrying about him. "What about Mark and Assistant Director Skinner? Are they still here? And I suppose Margaret and Scully are coming, too?"

"Mr.--Stromberg, is it?--has gone home. Mr. Skinner and Mrs. Scully will be up to see you as soon as you're settled, and I'll talk to Dr. Scully as soon as she arrives from Quantico. In the meantime, you just concentrate on not vomiting until you're safely in bed for the night.

"Oh, and by the way, Mulder, you'll keep the IV and be NPO except for your current psych. medicines until tomorrow, just in case something is wrong. No sleeping pill tonight, either. I want you awake the entire night, not just being awakened every two hours."

It was too much. Here he'd been looking forward to dinner, boring though the hospital food was, because he'd gotten so caught up in his work that he'd forgotten to eat lunch. And he'd been planning on going to sleep as soon as he finished eating. He said, knowing she'd take the words the right way, "You're a mean, nasty doctor. You starve me, and torture me by making me stay awake when I'm exhausted. Next thing I know, you'll be bleeding me, too."

She leered an Evil Doctor Leer at him. "Don't get me started, Mulder. Or I'll order the blood work now, even though I'm not expecting you to need surgery. What is that? Three? four? vials of blood?"

He knew he paled at her words. That was a good start at passing out, so he ignored her earlier reply to that idea and sat up to finish the job.


	9. Chapter 9

**FBI Headquarters**   
** Assistant Director Walter Skinner's office**   
** 8:30 a.m., January 22**

Scully looked at Mulder as he came through the door and took his seat while they waited for the Assistant Director to show up. The bruise on his forehead had turned a spectacular shade of iridescent purple, and the small bandage on the back of his head stood out like a signal flag. She was pretty sure he'd end up getting a very short haircut as soon as that bandage came off. Or maybe not. Depending on how much hair they'd had to shave before putting in the three stitches, he might just try to hide the area. She smiled to herself. Only Mulder could be back at work a mere two days and get himself another Workers' Comp. injury serious enough to land him right back in the hospital for "23 Hour Observation".

"How are you feeling, Mulder?" If he tried to brush her off-- But he didn't.

"Better than Tuesday night. I've still got Excedrin headache number forty-seven, but the only thing Dr. Carrington will let me take is plain Tylenol. On the bright side, the dizziness has been gone since mid-day yesterday. And obviously she let me come back to work."

He shifted in his chair, then settled back. "You read my report?"

She nodded but didn't say anything, not sure which way he was headed, and unwilling to discuss things that they might have to rehash as soon as Skinner came in.

"Was that guy on the level, Scully? Is it really believable that _he _gave me the skull fractures in June, or were those MIBs just trying to jerk my chain?"

Scully frowned. This was exactly what she was afraid he was going to ask, and he wouldn't like her answers. _She _didn't like her answers, and getting them had kept her at GUMC's Medical Records department, and then her pathology lab with animal corpses, crash-test dummies, volunteers wielding baseball bats, and computer simulation programs, from Tuesday night straight through until six this morning. As soon as this meeting was over, she was heading home for at least ten uninterrupted hours of sleep. "Let's wait until--"

Skinner strode in. "Sorry I'm late, Agent Mulder, Agent Scully. I just came from a meeting with the Director." He put the folder he was carrying down on his desk and took his seat. "Agent Scully, I understand you've been trying to determine whether Agent Mulder's assailant was telling the truth. Have you reached any conclusions?"

"Yes, sir, I have. I'm very sorry to say this, but in my expert opinion, he was telling the truth. There's no way that a blow strong enough to break Agent Mulder's arm could have landed with as much precision as any of the _three_ blows he received to his skull."

She glanced at her partner. He'd gone pasty white, and she didn't blame him one bit. To know that the man who'd put him in the hospital for five and a half weeks, with a head injury that eventually became the direct cause of his two suicide attempts-- to know that he was still out there waiting for Mulder was enough to make _her_ want to turn tail and hide.

Skinner pulled her attention back to the here-and-now. "Do you want to clarify that, Agent Scully? I understood that Agent Mulder had only been struck twice."

She was back on familiar ground; this was no different than testifying in court. "Yes, sir. That was what Dr. Carrington's notes indicate. But, based on what Agent Mulder reported the man said, I re-checked his X-Rays and CAT scan from June, and did some tests of my own. It's not possible for anyone to have struck so precisely unless Agent Mulder's head was stabilized against something. Therefore, there must have been a first blow, just strong enough to stun him, so that his assailant, either by himself or with help, could place Agent Mulder in the exact position he wanted, probably propped against his car. I'm sure that if the car had not been stolen to make the whole incident appear believable, there would have been blood and hairs found to corroborate this.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Skinner, but I have to accept that the assailant was telling the truth, and that he could, if ordered to, do the exact same thing again."

Skinner nodded as if he'd already known what she was going to say. After nearly a minute of silence, during which he stared at his steepled fingers, Skinner said, "Agent Mulder, it has been recommended that in your, and the Bureau's, best interests, you take 100% disability retirement at this time." He held up a hand, shutting off Mulder before he could say anything. "That recommendation is _not_ mine, nor is it the Director's. Whatever you choose to do, we'll support you. If that means you decide to return to doing profiles, then I and Senior Agent Elliot will try to find a way to prevent a reoccurrence of those two episodes. If you decide to re-open the X-Files, then you will have the Bureau's full resources behind you."

Skinner stood up, came around to the front of his desk, and perched one hip on it. "Agent Mulder, I can understand how terrifying it is to know that man is still out there. If you need time off to think about this, take as much as you need--I'll see that you don't lose time or pay. I'll also talk to Dr. Kennedy, see if he'll lift the restriction against you having your gun back. I refuse to allow one of my agents to be a target without any means to defend himself, so if the doctor says no, I'll assign agents as your bodyguard until--"

Mulder shook his head, then winced and shut his eyes. Scully could see him fight to control the pain he'd just caused himself. After a minute or so, he said, "No, sir, no bodyguard. I won't put another agent in the direct line of fire. I'll go back--"

"Mulder, NO! You can't!" Scully reached out toward him. She could hear the fear in her voice and didn't care that Mulder and Skinner heard it too. Going back to doing profiles would kill Mulder as surely as that man would if he returned to the X-Files.

He put a hand on hers. "_Temporarily_, Scully. Temporarily. Until I _can_ have my gun back. I'll figure out a way to handle it. I'm not willing to knuckle under to the Men in Black, and I sure as hell am *not* going to commit suicide or go insane just because that's what they want."

He grinned then, and his face lit up with a laughing defiance. "I also have no intention of being an easy target a second time. Sir, since my every move at work has to have your personal OK, I'd like your permission to begin regular workouts for strength and 'self-defense' training." He looked up at the Assistant Director. "I know I have to be supervised; I won't object to whomever you assign. This could definitely be defined as a job assignment considering the threats I've received and how physically _un_fit I am now. I can't even run a half-mile without collapsing. Nobody has to know about Baseball Bat Man, it's enough that I need to be re-certified. You could authorize me for daily workouts at Quantico, and SAC Elliott would work me around that schedule."

"I'll consider it, Agent Mulder."

Skinner's nod and subsequent dismissal of both of them were preoccupied because he was already dialing a phone number that Scully recognized as Dr. Kennedy's. She had it memorized, but was surprised that the Assistant Director did also. He had obviously been keeping closer tabs on Mulder than she had thought. She wondered if Mulder knew, but decided not to say anything. Let sleeping dogs lie.

Then, as they were leaving, she realized that she and Mulder needed to talk _now. _She was going to have to postpone catching up on her sleep.

"Mulder--"

"Not here, Scully. Wait till we get to the office." Mulder knew she was upset. It was in the very way she walked, if not in her tone of voice. Then again, they were in a well-trafficked area of the building, and Scully wouldn't air their dirty laundry in public.

He headed for the elevator more slowly than he normally would have, but he didn't normally come back to work this soon after getting a major concussion. Field Agents weren't allowed back this quickly, but he wasn't a Field Agent now, was he? And a good thing, too. This headache was _not_ something he'd want to have while driving around or chasing someone. It took too much concentration to think past the pounding, and it was another ninety minutes before he could take any more Tylenol.

As soon as the elevator doors closed, Scully rounded on him. Her mouth opened, then shut, and she got her worried "Dr. Scully, M.D." look. "Mulder? Just how bad is this headache?"

He leaned against the wall and closed his eyes, waiting for his stomach to catch up to the rest of the elevator before he answered. Maybe he shouldn't have argued Dr. Carrington into letting him come back this soon. "On a scale of zero to ten? Oh, about a three. But that's only because I redefined my scale in June. On the old scale, between seven and eight. It'll be better when I take my next Tylenol." It wasn't worth adding that it would be a lot better if he was allowed to take Ibuprofen, or better still if he had been allowed to take even one of his left- over codeine pills.

The elevator stopped, and he thought for a second that he'd lose his breakfast, then miraculously the nausea disappeared and he felt, relatively speaking, fine. He held the door for Scully, but she refused to step out. Instead she reached under his arm and hit the "Hold" button.

"Mulder, the light's better here. I want to take a look at your eyes. You shouldn't still be--"

"Scully, it stopped. At the same time the elevator stopped, the nausea stopped. I'll just avoid elevators for the next day or so." He pulled the "Hold" button out and stepped out of the elevator. "Are you coming?"

Her silence, all the way to the office and until he was sitting, radiated fury. He couldn't deal with it, so he cut her off before she could even start. "The subject is closed, Scully. Dr. Kennedy won't let me have my gun back; I know that, you know that, and Skinner knows that, no matter what he said. So I'll go back to Quantico till June, then after I re-qualify we can re-open the X- Files."

She slammed her hands so hard onto his desk that files actually jumped. And so did he.

"_WE_? Who's this 'we', Mulder?! Did you bother to ask _me_ how I felt about this? Did you ever stop to think I might NOT want to re-open the X-Files? Did you ever--_once_\--think about the fact that I might NOT want to see you get killed, or, worse, turned into a vegetable when that man comes after you again? Did you ever stop to think that I, too, might end up getting killed?

"For God's sake, Mulder, you nearly _died _in June! You have no _fucking_ idea how lucky you are, that you woke up rational and got back full use of your left side so quickly. The _best, _the absolute _best _that Dr. Carrington predicted initially was that you _might_ not be comatose for the rest of your life. Then for those first few days after you woke up, when nothing stuck in your memory and you could barely move your arm and leg, she said you were likely to be that way permanently. She said you'd be in a wheelchair, Mulder--you'd never get out of bed on your own, let alone walk! You'd be lucky if you even knew who _you _were, let alone who I was!

"So don't talk to me about going back to the X-Files like it's no big deal. Because I won't stand for it!"

She had been standing over him the entire time, trembling in her anger, with her voice getting louder and louder, till she was shouting at the end. Now she backed away, stopping only when she backed into her desk.

He couldn't answer. He couldn't even _think _of an answer. No one had told him he'd come that close to-- And permanently paralyzed?! It wasn't possible. Dr. Carrington had never lied to him; she'd laid it straight on the line-- But he'd never asked, had he? And she wouldn't have volunteered that kind of information. Scully would have asked. She would have known the odds were against him recovering, and she would have demanded answers.

"Scully, I'm sorry. I didn't know. I--"

She cut off his apology, still angry. "Sorry won't work this time, Mulder. Don't even try it. I just spent the last thirty-six hours figuring out exactly how that bastard did what he said he did and I'll be damned if I'm going to do an autopsy on you one day that shows he did it to you again.

"And I won't stand for you going back to doing profiles. I won't let you do that to me and my mother again. I will _not_ let you- -" She stopped. Then she just turned and ran out of the room.

After twenty minutes he began to worry. He went looking for her, but she wasn't in any of the usual places she went to vent her frustrations at him or the world in general. So he gathered his courage and without knocking walked into the basement janitors' toilet they used because it was the closest one, if definitely not the nicest and certainly lacking any kind of lock.

She was standing at the sink, leaning on it really, arms braced on the sides of the sink, and her head hanging, with her hair falling forward and hiding her face. Without moving, she said in a monotone, "Get out."

"Scully, I--"

"Mulder, I said 'get out'. Can't you hear? Or are you so self- centered and just plain bent on being obnoxious today that you won't listen?" She straightened up finally and faced him, using one hand to brush her hair out of her face. "I can't talk about this now. I'm exhausted, Mulder. I've been awake since Tuesday morning, and I need to go home and get some sleep. So just drop it."

Her face was a mess, with eye makeup running down her cheeks and the puffy, bloodshot eyes and red nose that said she'd been crying for a long time and hadn't yet gotten the strength to wash up. He pulled out his clean handkerchief and held it out. "Here. This is softer than the paper towels. I'll wait for you in the office."

It was barely five minutes later when she reappeared, saying without looking at him, "I'll give you back the handkerchief after I wash it. You'll never get the makeup out." She turned to her desk, put on her coat and gloves, and got her keys out of her purse.

He went over to her and took the keys from her. "I'll drive."

She still didn't look up, just held out her hand. "You can't, Mulder. You don't have a license. So just give them back. I'll be fine."

He couldn't take it any longer. "_Fuck_ the license. You're not safe to drive, Scully. I don't mean fatigue. I know you could drive home if that was all it was. But you're too wrought-up and you know it. So I'm driving, and then I'm going to stay at your place till you're ready to talk. Because this _has _to be discussed. Now, not tomorrow, not next week, not some 'later' that becomes 'never'."

She finally looked at him. Something she saw there must have convinced her she wouldn't win this confrontation, because she smiled--lopsided, but still a smile. "So we'll take a cab. I refuse to aid and abet you in the commission of a crime."

* * *

**Dana Scully's apartment**

She got out of bed once, went to the toilet, got a glass of juice, and went back to bed, apparently without even realizing she was doing it. He caught himself staring at tantalizing glimpses of thigh and lace-trimmed _black _panties as her oversized t-shirt rode up when she reached up in the cupboard for a glass. For possibly only the second or third time since he'd come out of the coma in June, and certainly for the first time since he'd become aware of things on the psych ward in November, he found himself reacting to a woman. He savored the feelings, both physical and emotional, before reminding himself he couldn't lust that way after Scully. She was his partner after all, no matter what Kennedy said about some "intimate relationship". He forced himself to be a gentleman and look away.

It was after midnight before she came into the living room where he was sitting on the floor watching CNN and doing diagramless crossword puzzles on her coffee table, and said, "Have you eaten anything today?"

He nodded. "I went for a walk and ate a late lunch when Mark brought me my afternoon pills. I knew you'd be hungry when you got up. Pizza?"

She nodded.

"I'll call. The usual?" It might have been more than seven months since they'd eaten a midnight meal together, but the pattern was there for them to pick up, and its very familiarity helped them get past the awkwardness of this morning.

She picked a stray piece of anchovy off her "Super Veggie" slice and after careful consideration placed it on a nakeder-than-the- rest spot on one of the "The Kitchen Sink" slices on his half of the pizza. It was strange sitting here with Mulder, eating pizza and him drinking one of her herb teas instead of coffee or iced tea. She never would have believed that he could survive without them, yet he'd decided to stop even decaffeinated coffee and tea while he was on the psych ward. Getting up to refill her coffee cup, she asked Mulder if he wanted more tea, but he shook his head and said, "Ice water."

That made her stop in her tracks and stare at him. He'd turned into a chicken without its head. "_Ice water_, Mulder? Since when did you start drinking water?"

He smiled at her. "Mark drinks it all the time, winter or summer. Since we're sharing the cooking, I've gotten into the habit of putting it out at every meal."

Then, after they'd cleared the table and put away the remains of the pizza, they sat down again at the table to talk. After some very awkward "You first", "No, you first", "No, really" exchanges, she went first.

"When you were . . . when you didn't even seem to know I existed because you were so depressed, I went to talk to Dr. Theodopolous. He's head of the Pathology section at Quantico. Back before I was assigned to work with you he was my boss, and I trust him and respect him immensely. I told him pretty much everything, Mulder. We talked about what I could do, if you couldn't come back to work. He's going to retire. Not right away, but within five years. He said if I stayed at Quantico, I had a chance at his job. No guarantees, but a very good chance, especially if they offered it internally first, rather than on the Federal job lists.

"Then, on December 29, John Pendergrast, his assistant, surprised everyone by turning in his resignation, effective immediately. He'd been offered a job he really wanted, but it was only open if he could start on the 2nd. So Dr. Theo had a slot to fill, and I was there, but not officially really, because it was still temporary, depending on how well you did, and . . .."

She looked at him squarely. "And I'm thinking seriously of taking that job they offered me. It's not the assistant position, because that went to someone else already, but I definitely won't be bottom rung on the ladder." She put a hand on his nearer one. "Mulder, I can't live from one minute to the next not knowing if you're going to do that again. You never told me, but I'm sure you would have been suicidal eventually the first time, if the Compazine hadn't worked. And if you go back to doing profiles, it _will_ happen again. How can you prevent it? You don't know what causes it, do you? Oh, not the stress and frustration. Those're obvious. But why those two cases? Why not any of the other cases you worked on?

"So if you insist on going back there, I'm going to tell Mom that she has to step aside and let the court appoint someone else to be your Guardian. I won't let you do that to her again either."

She couldn't have shocked him any more than if she'd pulled out her gun and shot him at point blank range. She could see the blood drain out of his face and he started to sway. She dove around the side of the table, shoving it aside with a hip thrust, but by that time he'd already steadied a bit and no longer looked like he would faint. So she cleaned up the spilled water and coffee, and the broken glass and mug. Only when everything was taken care of did she let him talk. By that time, his color and breathing were normal again.

He held his new glass of water--no, cradled it--between both hands, gently turning it back and forth, while he spoke. He looked at it rather than at her. "I knew about your job offer. Skinner told me on Monday when I came back to work; he said we had to talk about it. You remember; that's why I called you. But things were different on Monday than they are now.

"While you were trying to figure out if Baseball Bat Man could have done what he said he'd done, I went ahead on the premise that he had. I had all of Tuesday night to think about it because Dr. Carrington wanted me to stay awake the entire time. I didn't tell you or Skinner, but I called Dr. Kennedy yesterday, while I was still in the hospital. I didn't tell him anything specific, just that I'd been threatened. That's how I know he won't let me have my gun now. He said if things go perfectly he might cut the three symptom-free months down to two, and I could have my gun back in May, rather than the end of June.

"So I'd pretty much decided that if Skinner was willing to let me work, rather than insisting I take temporary disability leave, I'd go back to Quantico. But I assumed I'd have Margaret . . .." His voice trailed off for a minute. Then his hands stilled and he looked at her. "Scully, she's the only reason I can even think about continuing to work. I know if I have her to count on, and you advising her, I can get through anything. And then you just said-- Scully, don't do this to me. I _need_ her. I need _you. _Even if you decide to take the job at Quantico, I can survive. I could go back to the X-Files on my own when I can have my gun back. But if you make her take her support away, I might just as well slit my wrists now, rather than wait till that man comes for me again. Because I know I can't go back to doing profiles without _both_ of you supporting me, and that means I have nowhere to go except back to the X-Files."

This time she was stunned. The Mulder she knew would never be this open and forthright. On the other hand, the Mulder she knew was gone forever, partly because of the injuries he'd suffered in June, but primarily because of the two suicide attempts. He could not have gotten out of the hospital without finally having dealt with some of his personal nightmares and horrors.

When she learned that Mulder had talked with a psychiatrist in September, after the first incident, she made it her business to find out about this "Dr. John F. Kennedy" that Dr. Carrington had called in. She initially thought his name a bad joke, then found out it was just a coincidence, since he'd been born about twenty years before JFK became President. She also found out that he was extremely well regarded by his colleagues. For him to have been willing to discharge Mulder from GUMC's psych ward, Mulder must have opened up to him, finally learned how to talk about all the things that she'd seen him shove behind his wall of sarcasm and professed indifference.

Right after the incident on Christmas day, Mom had called Dr. Kennedy and the three of them had discussed whether Mulder might be able hold on until the doctor could see him on the 26th at 4:30, or whether they should plan on him returning to the hospital first thing in the morning. The consensus had been yes, he probably could wait, but then he'd been so upset in the morning, coming near to refusing his medicines, that she'd left the breakfast room, going to fill a syringe with Ativan just in case. When she came back, he was taking his pills, but then he'd asked them how much longer before they could go at least a dozen times between then and their finally leaving for his appointment. She had literally never seen him that anxious, so near to falling apart over something so trivial. Then he'd been so calm when he walked out of Kennedy's office, telling them he was going back into the hospital, a regular bed, for a few days while Dr. Kennedy started him on Clozaril.

Now Mulder was living with Mark, who was dealing with him on Mulder's home territory, not the structured environment of the hospital where he had to cooperate. Mark, too, was someone who would not let Mulder get away with hiding and denying his feelings or problems. He wasn't a nurse, but a Certified Nurse's Aide with seventeen years' experience working with psychiatric patients. His last five years he had contracted with several psychiatrists, Dr. Kennedy included, to provide in-home supervision for their patients, either on a live-in basis when necessary, or as a sort of "visiting nurse", seeing the patients once or twice a day. If he couldn't handle Mulder, then no one could, and Mulder needed to be back in the hospital.

So, really, she was talking with a Mulder who was not the Mulder she'd worked with for more than five years before he'd been hospitalized last June. This was someone who probably wouldn't just go off and do whatever he wanted without consideration for her.

Maybe she could modify her stance. Maybe he would listen to her, would discuss this with her, and take her advice. She could at least try.

"Mulder, I don't want to do this to you. But Mom and I can't live the rest of our lives on the emotional roller coaster you've been subjecting us to. God alone knows how hard it is for you to deal with. Just remember you're not the only one involved here; you have to take our feelings into consideration."

He nodded. Then a smile quirked his lips. "You should have heard Mark when I called him this morning, saying I was staying here until we had a chance to talk this out. He hit the ceiling, threatened to call Dr. Kennedy and Margaret--and then said I had to call him every hour on the hour until you woke up. He brought me my pills at 3:00 and 11:00, and he said if I'm not home when he wakes up in the morning, he'd bring those pills, too." He smiled again. "If you had a lock box that I couldn't get into, Scully, he could leave a supply of my medicines here. You wanna go for it?"

Now she smiled. "_Mul_der. There isn't a lockbox this side of the Lone Gunmen's offices that you couldn't get into, if you wanted to badly enough. I'll pass on that one. Not that it matters, considering what other potentially lethal things I've got, like knives and forks and spoons." This time her smile was even wider, and his matched hers.

"But let's not get sidetracked. We're talking about what you're going to do. What will you do if Dr. Kennedy won't let you go back to the ISU? Have you considered that possibility?"

"Yes, of course. I had to. In that case I have to take disability leave. I don't want to because I'm not sure how that will affect things in the long run. Part of my treatment plan includes my working a regular schedule, with the normal stresses I would deal with aside from being out in the field. If I can't do that, I don't know if I'll ever be able to get my gun back, go back to being a Field Agent."

"Have you thought about a temporary transfer? Out of town, I mean. If you're not here in D.C., with the access you have here, do you think 'they' would leave you alone?"

He sat back in his chair. His eyes became abstracted and his face took on that blank look that meant he was remembering something in complete detail. Then he shook his head. "Probably not. The warning was explicit enough--'It's much healthier for you than _anywhere_ else in the Bureau, especially the X-Files.' They don't want me working anywhere but the ISU because that's so stressful on its own that I don't have any emotional energy left to even try to do anything else. Certainly I don't have the energy to try and figure out who they are, and what it is that they don't want me to continue investigating. From their point of view, whether I crack up completely, make another unsuccessful suicide attempt and get permanently committed, or successfully suicide, it's all the same--I'm not going to be a problem to them any longer. So it's profiles or nothing." He looked at her, and that look told her he would let her make the final decision.

"All right. I can see where you're coming from now. You really have thought this through, and I agree with your reasoning. But we're still left with two unknowns--will Dr. Kennedy allow it, and will Mom allow it. Remember, whether or not we're willing to deal with whatever happens, Mom is your Guardian, and if she feels that you really aren't capable of making a decision this serious, she can step in and over-rule you. I don't think she will, if Dr. Kennedy agrees, but there's always that possibility. So, who are you going to talk with first, her or Dr. Kennedy?"

He shot her a look of disbelief. "Me? I thought we'd talk to them together."

She shook her head. "Oh, no, Mulder. This is _your_ fight. You've convinced me, now you have to convince them. I'll stay home from work if you want, so they can call me, but I won't go with you. You-- Mulder, do you think you can actually get in to see Dr. Kennedy today? Or will you have to wait until Monday? I don't think he'll consider this an emergency."

"I have no idea. I'll just have to call his answering service, and then ask him when he calls me back. So I'll call Margaret and, if she's willing, talk to her first." He stood up and stretched his back and arms enough that she actually heard the popping of his vertebrae. Then he turned the chair around and sat down straddling it, resting his forearms on top of the chair back and his chin on top of his forearms. "Scully, what about the X- Files? Do you want to come back? Or will you take the job at Quantico?"

She shrugged. "I'm not sure anymore. It's suddenly a lot more complicated than it was this morning. Then it was your bull- headed idiocy versus my rational consideration of the situation. Now it's as if we're still _in_ the X-Files. Someone out there, probably the same people we've been fighting all along, thinks you're on the edge of a discovery so important that he or they can't afford to allow us to continue. So, can _I _afford to let them get away with that? Can I take the chance that whatever it is they want hidden isn't just the thing we need to blow the whole conspiracy open? And the answer to that is 'no'.

"But I have to balance that against the certain knowledge that if we continue to look for whatever it is, they _will_ come after you again. And you _won't_ survive another attack. There's no way, even if he's not trying to kill you. Mulder, the human brain can only absorb so much trauma before _something _gives. You were supposed to be permanently crippled, the victim of a random carjacking. I was supposed to decide that the X-Files--our search for that Truth--weren't as important to me alone as they were to us together. I would have closed out the open cases without really digging the way you would have, and then, regretfully maybe, I would have gone on to something else and they would have continued their agenda unhampered."

Now she stood up and said, "I need to think about this; can you entertain yourself for a while?" She went into the living room, where she curled up on the couch hugging a pillow while she thought about it. It might have been two minutes or it might have been twenty before she put the pillow back and came back to the table. Without sitting down she said, "Mulder, do you have _any _control over this talent of yours? If you can use it to find serial killers, can you deliberately invoke it to figure out what we were so close to that they had to attack you?"

He looked nearly as stunned as he had earlier. It was nearly thirty seconds before he answered. "I have no idea. It never occurred to me to try to figure out what might have been the specific trigger. The frustration was so obvious an answer that I just assumed that it was the only answer."

He stood up, pacing the length of her apartment, and his growing excitement was obvious from his increasing speed before he finally came to a halt in front of her. "I can remember those two days, Scully, right from the time I got to work, and if I can't stop when the insights kick in, I'll still be OK. This anti- psychotic I'm on now, Clozaril, is a like a miracle. I can't believe the difference. With the Compazine, I could 'forget', but it was something my subconscious did, because consciously I could barely put two thoughts together. The Risperdal let me forget, but only temporarily. When the memories came back, each time they were as crystal-clear as the first time. That's why I fell apart on the 25th at your mom's house and why I was so scared on the 26th--I knew if they came back again, while I was so upset anyway, that I'd never be able to control myself, and *you* certainly aren't big enough to take me down. But with the Clozaril, I 'forgot' almost as soon as my dose reach 300mgs. a day. Dr. Kennedy's got me almost completely tapered off it already, but even so, when I try to remember that night--it's there, but it's like what I assume memories are like for other people. Nothing's really clear and I can remember parts of it, but not the real horrors. I get to a certain point, and then I've skipped over something I must not want to remember, and things resume.

"Scully, we've got to try! If I can learn to control this, then I can figure out what they don't want me to know, and I might even have enough information, without realizing it, to figure out who Baseball Bat Man is. I'd love to get _him _behind bars."

She put a hand on his arm. "Mulder, slow down! Don't get ahead of yourself. You can't do this on your own. You _have _to talk to Dr. Kennedy before you try. You don't have any idea what you're getting into. What if the process of trying to remember traps you into actually having another of those incidents? Both times you hurt yourself; you hit your head when you fell. Can you imagine what Isabelle will say if you deliberately re-injure yourself?"

She didn't have a chance to elaborate on that because Mulder started laughing so hard he had to sit down. When he could catch his breath, he said, "Scully, I don't have to imagine it. She skinned me alive Wednesday afternoon when she came to discharge me from the hospital. I mean, up one side and down the other! I thought she'd shocked me back in August, after the first time, when she said 'bullshit'. That was _nothing_ compared to what she said this time, and without using a single dirty word. You should have been there, Scully, it was incredible." He turned sober then. "So, yeah, I'll talk it over with Dr. Kennedy. If he absolutely insists I go back in the hospital to try remembering, then I guess I'll have to."

He shifted uncomfortably in his chair and ran a hand through his hair. "God, I'm so sick of hospitals. I've been in the hospital more times, and longer, during these past seven months than probably any two years combined before that. Sometimes I have the feeling that if I have to face one more hospital meal, or one more IV, or one more lab tech coming to draw blood, I'll just throw whatever it is and whoever brings it out the nearest window." He shook his head ruefully. "Then where would I be? Probably transferred to St. Elizabeth's, where it would take me forever to earn off-ward privileges. And _that_ would drive me crazy, no matter that they thought I was crazy already.

"Anyway. So let's recap. At a reasonable hour this morning, I'll call Margaret to tell her we talked about what happened, and that we've agreed that I'll go back to the ISU temporarily, if she and Dr. Kennedy agree. And I'll try to talk to him about the same thing, and about trying to figure out exactly how I do the insight thing-- Scully, y'know, we're going to have to come up with a name for whatever I'm doing. Incident, episode, insight thing; those are all pretty lame, don't you think?"

She grinned back at him before adding, "And I'm going to decide one way or another about whether I come back to the X-Files. But that's only if you make it back, Mulder. If you can't come back, there's no way I'll do it on my own. Just so you know.

"And last of all, are you going to go home now? It's after three."

"Scully! Are you inviting me to spend the night with you? What will Mark say? What will _Margaret_ say?" He was teasing her, the old familiar teasing, and it felt wonderful!

"_If _I were to call them at this hour, Mark would probably mumble something unintelligible, and fall back asleep. Mom would congratulate us, suggest that my birthday next month would be a wonderful date for the wedding, and ask if I've decided who's going to give me away. So we're not going to tell them. I'll just set my alarm for 7:30, and call Mark to let him know I'll bring you home as soon as you're awake. If you take the sleeping pill now--"

He interrupted her. "I don't have a sleeping pill. Mark wouldn't leave one, of course, and when I called to tell him you'd finally woken up, he said to just skip it tonight. After all, I did fine in the hospital on Tuesday night without it."

"All right then. Let's just make up the couch for you, and I'll see you in the morning."


	10. Chapter 10

**Investigative Support Unit**   
** FBI Academy**   
** Quantico, Virginia**   
** 8:00 a.m., January 28**

"Agent Mulder. It's good to have you back." Senior Agent Elliot closed his office door and headed back to his desk. "Are there any special restrictions this time around?" He waved Mulder to a seat, then took his own again.

Mulder nodded. "I'm still under what Dr. Kennedy calls 'close supervision'. If my desk isn't in plain sight, then either someone checks on where I am and what I'm doing every hour, or I have to report in person to you. Other than that, we just wait and see. Supposedly, the Clozaril will prevent a reoccurrence of those two incidents, and Dr. Kennedy will reassess my status monthly. I'm still a bit drowsy most of the time, but that should clear up in a few more days, as my body gets accustomed to the amount of Clozaril I'm on now."

He grinned then. "If Dr. Kennedy were more cooperative, I could drink regular coffee and stay awake that way. But he's as strict about caffeine and chocolate as Dr. Carrington was, so I guess you'll just have to assign someone to kick me if I doze off."

Elliot finished the notes he was making, then said, "I spoke with Walt; he explained why you're here, when Dr. Kennedy had said you could never do another profile. Is this a permanent assignment, or are you only here until you can carry your gun again?" He swivelled in his chair, reached for some papers, then swivelled back and spread them out on his desk. He was talking as did this, not giving Mulder a chance to reply yet. "We knew, pretty early on, you wouldn't be coming back, so we went back to the old assignments and furniture arrangement. If you're going to be here permanently, I'll divide up the states like this, and we'll give this furniture arrangement a try. If this is short term, then I'd like to have you be a float, so to speak, and we'll use this furniture arrangement. You'll cover vacations, and when agents are traveling, and in general, help everyone, look for connections that aren't readily evident, like that case where you were able to determine that it was one killer flying all over the country, rather than several killers with similar profiles."

Mulder wasn't sure what to say. Elliot obviously knew what had happened, and why he wasn't supposed to come back, and why he _was _here--and he still treated him and the restrictions he was on like it was no big deal. Even Skinner wasn't this casual! Could he possibly be such a good profiler that Elliot was willing to overlook the problems that could come up? Or was he under pressure from Skinner to "keep Mulder happy"? At this point, he didn't really care. Anything was better than sitting around his apartment waiting for that man to come back to permanently cripple him. Finally he just said, "Temporary. Between five and six months."

"All right, then, let's go out and let the others know."

And just that quickly he was back at work.

* * *

**Apartment 42, Bathroom**   
** 6:00 a.m., March 1**

Mulder stared at the Clozaril pill in his hand, and knew that what he was about to do was tantamount to suicide again. Oh, not real suicide, as in trying to end his life, but virtual suicide, because if Dr. Kennedy found out before he had at least a month's experience with no anti-psychotic in his system, to prove he could handle the work without problems, he'd be out of a job at the very least, and back in the hospital at the worst.

Back those many years ago during his internship year in Manchester, England, he had never understood why his patients went off their meds once they were on their own with no one looking over their shoulder to make sure they took the prescribed doses at the prescribed times. Oh, intellectually he understood: the medicine made them drowsy, or slowed their thinking down, or took away their feeling of creativity, or any one of a dozen other reasons. But he hadn't really believed any of those reasons was good enough justification to go off the medicine, when they *knew* they'd lose it sooner or later, and be right back in the hospital.

Now he understood, because he was going to do the exact same thing they did for one of the exact same reasons. The Clozaril had been able to take the edges off those horrid memories about Christina Hernandez, and Dr. Kennedy had been weaning him off it, because it could cause agranulocytosis, a blood disorder which could be fatal. Then he was threatened and Kennedy still would not let him have his gun back right away, so he went back to doing profiles. But his psychiatrist insisted on *upping* the Clozaril before he came back to work. "The idea, Mulder, is to provide you with a shield, so to speak, so the images don't get bad in the first place. As long as your weekly blood work is OK, I want you on the highest dose you can tolerate."

He'd told Mike Elliot that he was still "a bit" drowsy and that it would wear off in a few days. That had been the understatement of the decade. He wasn't drowsy, he was nearly a zombie. He tended to fall asleep almost as soon as he sat down, unless he was actually talking to someone. Elliot had had to send him to the infirmary before lunch that first day, because it was obvious that he wasn't going to be able to do any useful work, and, of course, he had to wait till Scully was ready to go home. After the same thing happened on Thursday and Friday, Elliot had called Dr. Kennedy, who dropped the Clozaril from 600mgs. a day in divided doses, down to 450mgs. a day, and then a week later, to 300mgs. a day, the same dose he'd been on originally.

At that dose he wasn't sleepy and Dr. Kennedy had grudgingly let him continue working, with dire warnings that 300mgs. was probably too low a dose to do him any good. If there were no problems at work or at home, then he'd re-assess things at the end of the month, and decide whether Mulder could return to living completely independently.

The problem was, from Mulder's point of view, that he couldn't _think_. He hadn't noticed it when he was at home for those two and a half weeks after New Year's, but now--he read the crime reports, and the profiles the other agents gave him, and he looked at the photographs, and all that information just sat in his head. Oh, he made suggestions, and every once in a while something was just what that profiler needed, but he wasn't working at even one-tenth his usual capacity. And his solve rate was too low for Elliot to be able to justify keeping him on, no matter what Skinner and the Director wanted.

So now he knew what his patients had felt like when they'd decided to quit taking their medicines. Because Mark Stromberg had moved out yesterday, and he was making that same decision and he'd live with the consequences just as his patients had done. He tossed that pill, and the entire rest of March's supply, into the toilet and flushed them away.

By then it was too late, because he'd just remembered the warnings the nurses had drummed into his head when he went into the hospital to be started on the Clozaril. Coming _off_ it abruptly could cause severe extra-pyramidal side effects, possibly permanently. And he was NEVER to miss a dose, because the drops and rises in the blood level of the medicine might start the agranulocytosis, where a constant blood level was safer, relatively speaking.

He leaned his head against the wall in despair. Oh, hell. He'd burned his bridges worse than he'd expected, hadn't he? So much for him believing he'd thought this through clearly and logically. Well, he'd better call Kennedy right now, to admit his stupidity-- No. Because if he stayed on the Clozaril, he'd be out of a job. And if he was out of a job, then there was no reason for the Clozaril. So he'd take his chances with permanent pseudo- Parkinson's, and Tardive Dyskinesia, and whatever else could go wrong with his body.

* * *

**FBI Academy, Pathology Lab 3**   
** 5:00 p.m., March 16**

"Scully? Are you ready to go?" Mulder stuck his head in, but didn't go any further in to the lab than that. Now that he didn't have to smell dead bodies on a regular basis, be found that his stomach could no longer tolerate the odors of decay and putrefaction. So he met Scully here at the door, or, if he were running late, she picked him up at the ISU office. But after his next appointment with Dr. Kennedy he wouldn't need her to take him to and from work, he told himself. Dr. Kennedy would let him have his driver's license back, and he would . . . he would . . ..

He really didn't have any idea what he would do. He hadn't driven in nine months, and he could no longer imagine what it would be like to have that freedom.

Scully appeared at the door, shrugging her coat into place. "Sorry; I got a phone call just as I was getting ready to leave." She locked the door, then turned right, not left toward the exit. "We have to stop at the Infirmary first."

"Are you OK, Scully? You're not sick, are you?" She hadn't said what the phone call was, but she'd had her annual physical last week, and it could be that one of the tests had come back showing something wrong.

"No, I'm fine, Mulder. We'll see what it is when we get there. I'm not really sure myself."

There was a nurse waiting when they got there, and before either he or Scully could even ask why they'd had to come, she was saying, "Agent Mulder, I need a blood sample. If you'll roll up your sleeve, please, I can take it and you'll be on your way."

Oh, shit! Kennedy wanted to make sure he was taking his medicines now that he was on his own, and he hadn't been, and the test would show that, and . . .. Scully was looking at him queerly, as if she couldn't understand why he was hesitating. So he took off his suit jacket and rolled up his sleeve, saying, "You know me and needles, Scully."

* * *

**Georgetown University Medical Center**   
** Medical Annex**   
** Dr. John Kennedy's office**   
** 2:30 p.m., March 17**

Margaret Scully was already waiting in Dr. Kennedy's office when he and Scully went in. Scully had acted like she didn't know what was going on when she came to get him and told him about this special session, and he was sure she was even more surprised to see her mom here. So Margaret had decided not to tell her daughter the bad news. He sighed and took the seat on the wall end, letting Scully sit in the middle, next to her mom. The fact that he was effectively hemmed in was not lost on him.

Dr. Kennedy was brutally swift. "You know why Mrs. Scully is here, Mulder. Do you have anything you want to say before she and I recommit you to the hospital until I can find a group home with an opening? You know you're going to be on injections for all your meds, and you won't be going back to work any time in the near future."

Scully was looking at him like he was someone she'd never met before, and Margaret--well, Margaret looked like someone who'd gone through Hell and come out the other side. As if it were somehow _her _fault that he'd gone off the medicine.

He started to shift in place, but all three of them stiffened, so he subsided. With a half-smile, half-grimace, he said, "I'm not going to do anything, you know. I just hoped it would be the regular visit at the end of the month before you found out. I guess I really _wasn't _thinking clearly when I decided to stop taking the pills. I should have known you'd do the blood test."

"Why did you do it?" Kennedy leaned forward and actually looked curious.

"Oh, the usual reason: I couldn't think. My work was useless, even I could tell that, and it was obvious that Senior Agent Elliot wouldn't be able to justify keeping me. I'd been thinking about it, I suppose, and then--I flushed all the Clozaril down the toilet the morning after Mark left." He shrugged; whatever he said wouldn't make any difference in the long run.

Kennedy leaned back, far enough for his chair to creak, and fiddled with his pen, the first time Mulder had ever seen him do anything with his hands while he thought something through. Finally he sat back up and placed the pen on his desk. "Senior Agent Elliot called me yesterday to say that whatever change I'd made in your medicine at the beginning of the month was working beautifully, and that your work was nearly back to your best. I thanked him for the report, and then called Mrs. Scully to ask her to voluntarily recommit you if the test results showed you had stopped taking your medicines. _She _convinced me to let you tell your side of the story." Kennedy looked at him, making it obvious he wanted an answer.

Embarrassed, Mulder looked at Margaret. "I'm sorry; it never occurred to me that you'd get caught up in this. Again, I can only say I suppose I wasn't thinking too clearly."

She said, "You only stopped taking the Clozaril, Fox. Why not your other medicines?"

He nodded. "That was the only one that mattered. I know I still need the rest of them. But the Clozaril made it impossible for me to work--and I'd have been a sitting duck if they came after me again. So I just stopped taking it." He sat straight up and looked at the psychiatrist. "_Nothing's _happened. Elliot's been giving me more and more work as I've gotten better, and I've had NO problems. No nightmares bad enough to wake me, no anxiety attacks, no remembering Richardson or Huber, no _nothing. _And no side-effects when I quit, either."

Scully finally spoke up. "Dr. Kennedy, the thing that seems to trigger one of those episodes is extreme frustration. What Mulder does now is no different than what he did for all those years the first time he was in the Investigative Support Unit. Can't we just continue to watch, and try to avoid that level of frustration? I hadn't thought about it, but he's right. He _was_ a sitting duck. His reaction time was noticeably slower, and it was obvious how hard he had to work to think through even relatively simple problems. Whatever good the Clozaril does seems to be confined to helping him cope after the fact, not prevent an incident."

"You don't know that, Agent Scully. Just because Mulder says there aren't any problems doesn't mean they aren't there." He was silent for a long time, then finally said, "All right. You can stay at home. And stay off the Clozaril. But I'm going to have you start seeing a psychologist on a weekly basis. Believe me, Mulder, that psychologist will be chosen with care, and I will be in close consultation with him or her: I can't stress to you enough how critical your honesty with _all_ of us will be from here on out." He paused a moment while the words settled in the room. "You can tell Senior Agent Elliot to expect random visits by someone who'll want to observe you to see how you're doing. I'll try to get Mark, but I don't know if he's available. When I know who it is, I'll give Elliot a call.

"As for you being allowed to drive, Mulder, the answer is no. You show me two full months of no problems, under the same stress levels you had in October, and I'll sign the DMV form." He pushed back his chair and stood up. "Mrs. Scully, Agent Scully, thank you for coming over today." The session was obviously at an end.

* * *

**Investigative Support Unit**   
** FBI Academy**   
** Quantico, Virginia**   
** 3:00 p.m., May 12**

Mike Elliot came out of his office and looked around the "bullpen". It was quieter than he could have imagined, with all of the desks empty. Two of his agents were traveling around the country holding short seminars for local law enforcement people, one was out with a broken leg incurred in last night's intramural baseball game, and one--

He sighed. Mulder was having problems. He'd been disappearing almost daily the past two and a half weeks, often for two to three hours at a time. He always came back, but today Mark Stromberg "just happened" to drop in, and when he couldn't find Mulder, and no one knew where he was, and it was going on _four_ hours that he'd been gone, the shit had hit the fan. Now he had the unpleasant duty of telling Mulder he was taking time off, whether he wanted it or not--if the rest of his agents and every single person on campus who could be spared actually found him and brought him back here, that is.

And he _knew _Mulder didn't want time off, not right now. The first time Mulder disappeared, he was just getting ready to start a search when he reminded himself that Mulder wasn't under special supervision any more, hadn't been in more than a month; he could come and go as he chose. The second and third times it almost looked like Mulder would tell him what was going on, but he didn't. He was deciding whether to force the issue when Tad and Roger, who'd worked with Mulder in Violent Crimes, individually approached him and told him Mulder would never realize he was doing anything strange. He was on to something, but it was going to be one of his "Spooky" profiles. If Mulder were able to go to the crime scenes, they said, he would be better off. He could put that uncanny instinct of his to work in his old way and he probably would already have figured out whatever it was that was bothering him. But he couldn't.

Elliot had finally decided to follow up on that idea, calling Walt Skinner yesterday, because he still had the final say on whether Mulder could go anywhere off campus. But Walt passed the buck on that one, saying Mike would have to talk to Mulder's psychiatrist. The psychiatrist said an emphatic "no", and then Stromberg showed up today and without even checking with Dr. Kennedy, said that Mulder was to take two weeks' vacation, and if he refused, then Elliot should probably plan on Mulder not coming back at all.

He tried to explain. He even called Tad and Roger in and they tried to explain. But Stromberg was having none of it. Finally, he tried what he hoped would be the clinching argument--with Mulder's memory, it wouldn't matter whether he was here, home, or deep-sea fishing. He'd still be worrying at whichever case it was that was bothering him.

And that had worked, but not in the way he'd wanted. If he could unsay those words, he would gladly go to the church this very minute and give this year's tithe, the one that he kept "accidentally" forgetting because he just couldn't afford it, not with the new car, and the roof that had had to be replaced, and all four kids in college come fall. Because Stromberg got this really strange look on his face, one that reminded him a hell of a lot of terror, and he grabbed the phone and told Kennedy's receptionist that it was an emergency and he had to talk to Kennedy right now, this very minute, he didn't care _who _the doctor had in his office.

And the side of that conversation that he, Tad, and Roger were able to hear scared _them. _Mulder was going to do "it" again. Stromberg didn't know how soon, but Mulder would probably be off somewhere where no one knew where he was, and if he didn't hurt himself or kill himself when he fell down, then he'd take off for wherever the crime had happened, and they'd _never _find him, because no one here knew which case was bothering him, and he had fifteen cases, covering damn near every state in the Union. And then Mulder would probably end up dead, because he'd steal a car and have an accident along the way, or get arrested for Grand Theft/Auto and get locked up and . . .. None of them needed to hear the end of _that _sentence.

So then he really did have to institute a search. He tried to beg off on that, saying Mulder always came back, but Stromberg just held out the phone. Kennedy reminded him that he had the responsibility of calling in the police if he knew one of his patients was actively suicidal--he tried to argue on that point, but Kennedy would have none of it--and did Elliot really want him to call the head of the Academy to tell him he had a suicidal agent "somewhere" on the grounds? So he agreed, and they decided that he would tell the director nothing other than no one knew where Mulder was, that he had an emergency phone call, and was it possible to have the trainees do a real-life search?

So now he waited. And worried. And wondered what the hell he'd tell Agent Scully--who he'd very carefully ordered kept _un_informed--if Mulder had already done "it" by the time they found him. Because he couldn't imagine what he'd tell her if Mulder had gotten as far as getting off-campus already.

He was just turning back to his office, where Stromberg was waiting, when he heard a noise out in the hallway. By the time he turned that way again, Mulder was in front of him, panting like he'd run from half-way across campus, asking what the emergency was, was it his mother, had she had another stroke, or was it Margaret Scully, or what. Then three other people came into the office behind Mulder, trying to apologize and explain. So he just roared "Quiet!", said "Thank You" to those people and then shooed them out, asking them to pass the word to call off the search.

Then he turned back to Mulder again, in time to see him staring at Stromberg, who'd chosen the God-awfullest time to come to the door of his office to see what all the commotion was. Because Mulder started backing away, and Stromberg stepped out of the office, and then Mulder had his back against a wall with his hands up defensively, saying, "Fuck you! Fuck off! I'm _not _going to do it again. I'm _not. _It's not like that. I swear it's not. I'm fine. I'm fine. Just leave me alone." And it didn't matter what Mulder was going to do or not do, because at that minute he looked like he was going to work himself into a nice case of hysterics and land back on the psych ward whether or not that's what Kennedy had in mind.

He put a hand out to stop Stromberg, who was making soothing noises that Mulder wasn't listening to. He pointed him at the office, saying, "I'll handle this." Stromberg looked inclined to argue, so he forcibly turned him around, saying, "I'll handle Mulder. You just keep your mouth shut until I've explained to him what's going on. You don't know this Mulder. I don't really know this Mulder. This is "Spooky" Mulder from eleven-twelve years ago, when he was the best damn Profiler that the ISU had ever seen. If he says he's not going to do it, then I believe him. So just leave us alone, OK?"

Stromberg looked back over his shoulder at Mulder, who'd calmed down a little now that he was being ignored, and nodded. Then he said, "I'm calling Kennedy to arrange a bed anyway."

He yanked Stromberg into his office, slammed the door shut, and hissed, "You IDIOT! How could--"

Stromberg cut him off with a chopping motion of one hand. "Now you can go out there and tell Mulder you talked me out of it. When you open the door, I'll yell something like 'You better know what you're talking about,' and Mulder should calm down enough for you to be able to talk to him."

Which is exactly what had happened, thank God. Now he and Mulder were sitting in an empty classroom half-way down the hall, talking about the whole thing. Mulder was trying to explain--his explanation didn't make much sense, but then Roger had said they never made much sense until after the fact, when you could sit down and backwards figure out his reasoning--what was going on with the "Mississippi Strangler", as the papers up and down that river had named the kook who not only strangled people, he strangled large-breed dogs and goats and lambs and at least one calf.

It was also obvious that Mulder was nowhere near as frustrated as he'd been either of the two times he'd done "it"--damn, but he wished they had a better name than just "it", but you lived with what you were given. Mulder really wasn't likely to do "it", if he was any judge of the matter.

"So I knew there was no way Dr. Kennedy would let me go out in the field. It was a nice gesture, but I could have told you before you even tried, because I already asked him, at my last visit. This case has been bugging me for nearly a month now, but I finally thought I had a handle on it today. When the three trainees found me, I was so pissed at being interrupted I could have spat nails, and then to find out it _wasn't _an emergency-- I'm sorry. Really." Mulder drained the last of his water, said, "'Scuse me," went off to refill his glass--

And didn't come back. After five minutes, Elliot was not only worried, he was beginning to panic. He hurried back to the ISU offices, wondering how he was going to explain a second disappearance to Stromberg, and froze dead in his tracks. Mulder was at his desk filling in the computer form they wrote their profiles on and he didn't even notice Stromberg staring over his shoulder at the monitor.

Then Stromberg turned that peculiar shade of green that said he was likely to lose his lunch, backed away shaking his head, and went back to Elliot's office. So he stepped over to read what Mulder was writing, and shook _his_ head. "Weak stomach," was all could think. Because there was nothing unusually horrible or gory here. Just the story of another unhappy, abused child who'd probably started by strangling puppies and kittens at the time he hit puberty, and worked his way up until he was strangling men who reminded him of his father. The only unusual part of this entire profile was how specific Mulder was about what kind of house the UNSUB--the unknown subject, the killer--rented, in what kind of rural area--he suggested northern, western Tennessee or western Kentucky and ruled out Louisiana, Mississippi, and Illinois--where he worked and what kind of vehicle he drove-- Mulder had specified at least one unmatched body panel taken off a junker elsewhere on the property--and how he chose his victims. Mulder was now giving probable reasons for several of the specific animals he'd strangled.

So, another crisis survived, and he sincerely hoped that it was the last one before Mulder was able to re-qualify and go back to his X-Files.

He stopped dead mentally. Unless Mulder's psychiatrist chose to consider this a disqualifying incident, and made him stay here _another _six months before he'd give him back his gun. If that was the case, he would personally insist on a second opinion, because this was just an example of "Spooky" Mulder at his best, and no one was going to convince him otherwise. He headed into his office to talk to Stromberg and Dr. Kennedy. If he was good enough and talked fast enough, Mulder might not even have to see Kennedy until his regular appointment at the end of the month-- but he doubted that.

As soon as he had his office to himself again, he pulled out a Request for Leave Time form, filled in Mulder's name, ID number, his work area, today's date, checked off "Sick Time" for the type of leave, wrote in "Dr.'s appt." for the reason, tomorrow's date for the date(s) requested, "8 hours" for the amount of time requested, adding "Approved: No transportation" and initialing that to explain why Mulder would need a whole day for a doctor's appointment, and signed and dated the form. He was ready to take Mulder's copy out to him when he remembered about the time off that Stromberg had insisted on, so he checked his calendar and added "Vacation", "5/14-5/22", "7 days (56 hours)", and "Holiday", "Memorial Day", "5/25", "8 hours". Then he went out to Mulder. "Here. The message is probably on your answering machine already. Just make sure you give this back if you come in tomorrow. Enjoy your time off."

Mulder took the form, looked up at him, looked at the form, then started laughing. After a minute he started laughing, too. Dr. Kennedy could be sooo predictable sometimes, where Mulder was concerned.


	11. Chapter 11

**Georgetown University Medical Center**   
** Medical Annex**   
** Dr. John Kennedy's office**   
** 9:05 a.m., May 13**

"So why didn't you just tell Elliot where you were going, Mulder? Something simple like 'I'll be on the track', or--"

Mulder cut him off. "You still don't get it, do you? And after all this time. No, I take that back; you never saw me before any of this started. I can't say where I'm going to be, because I _don't know._ I just need to walk, and run, and sit, and . . . when I have a car, I go driving. To the crime scene usually if we're there, but not always. It's just what I do. Tad and Roger understand and I think Elliot probably does, too. But Mark freaked. All he could see was that I had been gone for nearly four hours and nobody knew exactly where."

He stood up and started to pace, not the frantic pacing of some of his previous visits, but the absent-minded pacing of someone thinking something through. Eventually he found himself back where he'd started, and startled by that because he'd assumed he would end up in the same corner he usually did, he snorted a laugh and sat down. "It wasn't the same. I'm not sure exactly what was different, because you've forbidden me to remember those two days, but it wasn't the same. I don't know. Maybe because I've had the case for over a month, and the guy was still killing animals about four times as often as people. I don't know. It wasn't so . . . pressured. That's the best I can describe it. It felt like . . .." He trailed off, trying to find a comparison that would make sense to the psychiatrist. When he couldn't come up with one, he just shrugged.

Dr. Kennedy was silent for a couple of minutes, then asked, "Is it likely to happen again? And why didn't it happen before the Halloween incident?"

He nodded. "Yeah. Actually, I'm surprised it hasn't already. I mean, it's been two months since the last of the Clozaril wore off. I'd have thought-- No, it probably wasn't the Clozaril. It was probably the Zoloft, because I've only been off that since the middle of April, and this started about a week later. So probably the anti-depressant suppressed this behavior.

"As for why it didn't happen in October, I have no idea. I'd been off the codeine for a month then; the headaches I had only required Ibuprofen at their worst." He shrugged. "Maybe I hadn't healed enough, maybe the headaches were disrupting my concentration just enough. Whatever the reason was, it just didn't happen."

He stopped, struck by an unhappy thought. "Are you going to withhold my driver's license again? Just because of this?"

"I've been thinking about that. While you're on vacation--"

"I always thought _I_ decided when to take vacation. Never had one as a doctor's order before," Mulder interjected.

"As I was saying, Mulder, while you're on vacation, I'll talk with these two agents--" He paused, making it clear he wanted full names.

"Tad--well, actually, Thadeus, but don't call him that; he probably hates it as much as I hate 'Fox'--Wintergreen, and Roger Osborn."

"All right. If Agents Wintergreen and Osborn agree that this was typical of your behavior in Violent Crimes, and if Senior Agent Elliot isn't disturbed by it, then, no, I won't withhold your license. You bring me the form from the DMV when you come for your regular visit at the end of the month, and I'll probably sign it."

"And my gun? Do I have to start all over again on the three months for that?"

"Not if I sign the form for the DMV. The same reasoning applies. At this point in your life and career, I'm certainly not going to be able to modify the way you approach your work without months or even years of therapy. All we're trying to do is make sure that you really can handle all the stresses you're exposed to, short of actually being in the field, before I let you have your gun back. So let's think positively, and assume you'll be off all medical restrictions by the middle of July, three months after you got off the anti-depressant. I'll even let you make an appointment for the middle of the month, so you won't have to wait until your regular appointment."

Well, that would make it _thirteen _months since the accident by the time he was allowed to re-qualify for Field Agent status. More than double the six months Dr. Carrington had said. But that was only--he looked at a calendar mentally and counted the weeks- -nine weeks away. With vacation time now, that would be seven and a half weeks. "A mere trifle," he quoted to himself.

They'd said goodby and he was already at the door when something else occurred to him. "Dr. Kennedy?"

He looked up. "Yes?"

"You remember when we talked in January, when I wanted to go back to working at the ISU, and I asked about using my talent to figure out who had ordered that man to attack me? You told me if I deliberately tried to invoke it you'd get me recommitted so fast my head would spin because that would be prima facie evidence that I was suicidal."

"So?"

He went back to the chair he'd been sitting in. "Do you still think that way? Because if I'm going to get my gun back, then I'm going back to the X-Files, and I, or maybe both Scully and I, will be targets again. Why not use my vacation time now, to try to figure out what was going on and who was behind it? It's not like anyone's going to suspect anything. After all, as far as everyone else is concerned, I just blew whatever chance I had for getting my driver's license and my gun. If you don't say anything to anyone, and don't put anything in writing, can't I just go 'on vacation', but do that instead? Try to figure out exactly how I did what I did those two times, then use that on the ten unsolved X-Files? Because I don't know which case it was that started this whole thing."

He'd obviously surprised Kennedy with that request. The doctor's face went blank and Mulder could see by his eyes that he was thinking furiously. After more than five minutes of silence, he picked up his phone and dialed a number. Then he disconnected before the call could be completed, and said, "Mulder, please wait outside. I'd rather you not know who I'm talking to."

That was a shock. He would have expected the psychiatrist to be more concerned about what he was going to say, not to whom he was going to say it.

After five minutes he heard Kennedy over the intercom, telling his receptionist to cancel his 10:30 appointment, which meant that he'd already canceled his 8:30 _and _9:30 appointments to fit him in today. It was another forty-five minutes before the doctor called him back in, indicating he take a seat by the coffee table instead of the desk.

"Please don't interrupt, Mulder. I want you to hear all of this before you start objecting. Because I think I've covered all the bases, so you should have nothing to object to. All right?"

He could only nod, wondering what the hell he'd gotten himself into.

"I've made arrangements for you at a private sanitarium in Florida run by a close friend of mine, a psychiatrist named Henry Converse. If you agree not to read your own record, I'll let you carry a copy with you. Otherwise, I'll have a bonded messenger take it down. Do you agree?"

After an instant in which in wanted to violently shake his head, screaming, "Not _another_ hospital stay," he nodded.

Kennedy continued, "It's not what you're thinking, Mulder. We're talking luxurious here. Don't be too surprised if you run into faces you recognize from the movies, politics, sports--you name it, if there's a bed available and they're truly willing to work on their problems and they can afford it, they're likely to go to 'Henry's Place.' You're getting one of those beds--for free-- because Henry and I grew up together and saved each other's lives a couple of times when we were young and stupid and ran in a gang.

"Now, for details: Henry's had occasion to . . . become acquainted, shall we say? . . . with some of the people who provide the false IDs for his patients who don't want anyone to know they were there. He gave me one of those names, and I made arrangements for you, so you should be safe down there. Someone will meet you at the airport so you can get that new ID. I don't know who, but he or she will be obvious, I was told.

"In addition, because I know Mrs. Scully and Agent Scully, and they'd tear up heaven and earth if you simply disappeared, I've scheduled an appointment with both of them for tomorrow, my last appointment. They're both a little worried about you right now because of what I said when I called them, but I told them to leave you alone, that it was better for you to go on vacation without seeing or talking to them before you left. I'll explain what's really going on tomorrow. I've already made arrangements for Mrs. Scully to be able to see you if necessary. She'll remain as your Guardian, even under your assumed name. If it becomes important for Agent Scully to see you, then that can be arranged also.

"Henry knows a bit about what you want to do. I haven't actually seen his sanitarium so I don't know what kind of room you'll have. I do know that he's got everything there, the same as the psychiatric wards here at GUMC, because he takes drug addicts wanting to get clean as well as the 'usual' run of mental problems. It'll be up to him to decide how much freedom you have. I told him of the possibility that you might not be able to control this, that you could find yourself right back inside one or both of those two incidents."

At this point, Mulder tried to interrupt, but Kennedy put a hand on his, reminding him that he'd agreed not to. So he subsided, but promised himself he'd contradict the doctor on that, when he had his turn.

"Mulder, just listen to me on this. I know you don't think anything could happen. We both know the complete memories aren't there for you consciously any more. But if worse should come to worst, and you really can't make yourself stop remembering before you go over the edge, so to speak, you _don't_ know if you'll end up reliving either of those two killings. So Henry had to know, because he has to protect you both from injuring yourself if you fall, and if you should become suicidal again. If you really want to go through with this, and he insists on four- or five-point restraints while you do it, then you'll have to agree. Is that understood? Because if you won't, then this is off, and you really are still suicidal."

Mulder could _not_ stay there, pretending that this didn't bother him. Because it scared him almost as much as when Baseball Bat Man had told him he'd come after him again. He went to "his" corner, but that wasn't nearly far enough away. Kennedy let him leave the office, and he found himself in the men's bathroom at the end of the hall. He had just enough presence of mind left to not lock the door, to grab a paper towel, scribble "Out of Order" on it, and stick that in the door jamb when he closed the door. He knew Kennedy had followed him, and if he had locked the door, then the police would be here within five minutes and he'd be on his way across the street to GUMC in another five minutes. In re- -

He couldn't face that thought. He could remember every single minute of the times he'd been restrained, once the anti- depressant had started working. He'd woken up in the early hours of one morning, needing to piss so bad he was afraid he'd wet himself before he could get to the toilet, and he couldn't move. Not tangled-in-the-covers couldn't move, he _couldn't move. _He was lying on his back with his ankles in leather cuffs held down to the bed, his wrists in leather cuffs held to a thick leather belt around his waist, and that waist belt held down to the bed. Standard five-point restraints for violent patients. He'd panicked. Absolute, total, ape-shit panic, positive that the Men In Black had gotten him again and were going to torture him for Scully's whereabouts, or the ME data tape, or-- It didn't matter.

He remembered screaming for Scully to save him and swearing that they'd never get him to tell where she was, never mind that the two were mutually contradictory. He remembered someone landing across his chest to hold _that _down because he was banging his upper body and head against the mattress and fighting the leather restraints so frantically that in less than thirty seconds he'd already drawn blood, something that was supposed to be impossible. He remembered trying to bite someone, and lots and lots of hands holding him in addition to the restraints, until suddenly he was just too tired to fight, and he knew he'd never even felt the needle. As he fell asleep, he knew that he'd failed, that he would end up telling them everything they wanted to know, because no one could fight the drugs forever.

When he woke up again, hours later, Margaret Scully was there, already talking to him about things that only the two of them knew, from when he'd stayed at her house in July, so he knew she was real. But he still fought the restraints before he was really awake enough to understand what was going on. The nurse was actually coming at him with the needle again before something literally clicked into place, and he remembered where he was and why. He relaxed so abruptly that two of the aides landed on the floor on their rear ends because they weren't fast enough to stop fighting his no-longer-straining arms.

They kept him restrained until Dr. Kennedy could come talk to him about what was going on. He was awake and aware on that restraint bed for more than an hour before Kennedy came in and said it was OK to take off the chest restraint they had added while he was drugged. After fifteen more minutes of calm, they undid one ankle. Fifteen more minutes and they undid the opposite wrist. Then another fifteen minutes later, nearly two hours after he woke up, they let him get up.

And for two solid weeks after that he had to let them buckle him into those restraints at night. It was either that, or sleep naked on a bare mattress with the lights on and one aide sitting at either side of his bed in his locked room, so they could make sure he wouldn't do anything to himself. It was too cold to do that even if he was willing, which he wasn't because the very first night one of the aides had turned out to be female, and he was damned if he'd sleep naked with the lights on with some strange woman looking at him all night long. They didn't trust him with any less-intrusive form of supervision and he didn't blame them. Not after two suicide attempts. Not after the ways he attempted suicide those two times. And certainly not after a second attempt which came when everyone thought that he was OK, that not only wasn't he suicidal, but that he had already dealt with the problem while he'd been sedated to near coma.

When he surfaced from that memory, he was rocking himself, huddled in the corner on the counter top. Dr. Kennedy was watching him, cellular phone in hand, sitting on a chair someone must have brought him. He looked at his watch, and it was more than three hours later than he remembered. He had remembered that in real time. That was enough to scare him, because if he was so stressed by the mere thought of restraints that he couldn't control those memories, then what chance did he have of controlling the other memories, at least enough to stop before he fell over the brink into madness again?

He started to get down and Kennedy gave him a hand till he trusted his legs. He washed his face clean of the fear-sweat and wished he had a fresh shirt to put on. He couldn't look directly at the doctor, but he could look at him in the mirror when he said, "All right. Whatever Dr. Converse says. Just make sure he knows what might happen."

Kennedy nodded, Mulder picked up the chair for him, and they headed back to his office as if nothing at all unusual had happened. Once there, the doctor continued pretty much where he'd left off, which meant that not only had he canceled his 10:30 appointment, he must have ended up clearing the entire rest of the day, in case that was how long it was going to take. He tried to thank Kennedy for that, but he waved it off, saying, "You need me today, more than my other patients do."

After another hour or so they got all the loose or initially- forgotten ends taken care of, which included Kennedy asking Skinner and Elliot to that appointment tomorrow, Mulder making a mental note to be sure to tell the Lone Gunmen where he was going and why, and last but not least, Kennedy calling Workers' Comp. to let them know that he'd ordered Mulder to take a vacation, and that if anything should happen to him while he was in Florida, it should be considered part of his on-going claim until proven otherwise. His Case Manager screamed bloody murder about that, saying a vacation was a vacation and if anything happened to him it couldn't possibly be related to a work-related injury nearly a year ago. Kennedy simply reminded him of the Administrative Law Judge's ruling regarding the attack in January and he shut up.

Then, when all that was taken care of, Kennedy smiled and reminded him to take swimming trunks and sunscreen "because I know Henry's Place has an outdoor swimming pool, and with all those glamorous people there, there have to be at least a couple of gorgeous women who will ooh and ah over your scars." So he really hadn't been making it up when he said luxurious. He almost asked whether he needed to take condoms or were they supplied, but he thought better of it. Somehow, planning for sex--even if it was allowed, which he doubted--would have been like cheating, both because of the deadly serious reason he was going, and because it wouldn't be Scully he was flirting with and possibly--

He slammed the mental doors on _that_ thought.

* * *

**Henry's Place**   
** Near Miami, Florida**   
** Seclusion Room**   
** 9:20 a.m., May 18**

"Last chance to back out, 'Mr. Morton'. Are you sure you want to go through with this?"

Dr. Converse or his assistant had been offering him opportunities to back out every time he'd had a session, including the very first one Wednesday afternoon. That made today's refusal to back out his seventh one in six days, and he was glad he was able to stand here right next to the restraint bed and say he'd go through with this. Because he'd been getting more and more scared as the time grew closer to actually allowing himself to be strapped to that bed.

Henry, which is what he insisted on being called, hadn't said anything specific on Wednesday, just informed him of the rules and off-limits areas. Thursday's two sessions had focused on why he was here and exactly what he wanted to accomplish. But by Friday's session, Henry had laid out the plan. No ifs, ands, or buts: if Mulder wanted to try this, given his history and the fact that he'd have to remember both days to know if any given factor held true for both incidents, then it was five-point restraints for the entire time, however many hours that took. And if he, Mulder, chose not to, or was unable to, remember both days in one session, then he'd be on a Level III Suicide Watch for the entire time between sessions and when he was done, until Henry decided he was not suicidal. He wouldn't be restrained, but there would be _two _staff members within arms' reach at all times including toileting, bathing, and while he was sleeping, and absolutely no access to anything that could be used to hurt himself, which included no belt, no shoes, no watch, no reading glasses, no toothbrush, no razor or shaver, and no silverware. And considering just how Mulder had attempted suicide the second time, Henry was sorry, but he'd be restricted to his room, and the only room secure enough didn't come with a bathroom, because it was a seclusion room. So it would be a bedside commode and sponge baths. If he wanted to be shaved or have his teeth brushed, the staff would do it whenever he requested, but his hands would be restrained to his waist while they did it. He could eat finger foods, or he could be restrained at meals and be fed the regular food. And _no_ drugs, not even caffeine.

At least he'd been able to laugh at that, telling Henry he hadn't had any since June, the time of the original "accident". Then he tried to argue about the suicide precautions, saying what if he _didn't_ go over the edge, _didn't _get trapped into reliving either killing . . ..

Henry simply said, "The door's over there, and you can pick up your records before you leave. Tell John I said not to send me any more patients who aren't ready to face their problems."

So he'd literally gritted his teeth together and said OK. Then he had to ask for the sleeping pill Henry had ordered "just in case" Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights. Otherwise he wouldn't have been able to sleep at all; he'd have lain awake or paced the hospital grounds, worrying and fretting about what he'd do once he was restrained, assuming he could even let himself be restrained.

And now the time was here. Henry was saying he could take as much time as he needed, that no one would pressure him. Mulder wondered if he and the two nurses would really be that understanding, because he could feel himself getting upset before he even tried to get on the bed. He wasn't sure he could go through with this. He--

If he didn't go through with this, then Cancer Man, the Men in Black, and the Baseball Bat Man had won, and he might just as well quit the FBI now, because he'd never have the nerve to go back to the X-Files.

He took a deep breath, sat down on the bed, fastened the leather cuffs about his ankles himself, even to slamming shut the padlocks, then did the same for the waist belt. But he couldn't make himself fasten either leather cuff around his own wrist. He lay back on the cool clean sheet with no pillow under his head, trying to control the shaking. It took three tries before he could let them get close enough to even touch him. Then he had to ask them to fasten the sides of the waist belt to the bed first and then be sure to do both wrists at the exact same time, just in case. Which was the opposite order than you were supposed to restrain someone, the idea being to get the arms and legs first, because the person could do the most damage with their feet and fists. Then you did the waist, and then only if necessary did you add a chest restraint. But he wasn't going to fight them, at least not if he could help it. About the most he would do would be to tell them to stop, back off, wait still longer.

When it was all done, and he could move his rear end maybe two inches to the left or right and he could turn his legs inward and outward, but barely move his arms at all because the angle at which the wrists cuffs attached to the waist belt was all wrong for someone proportioned like he was, he came _this_ close to begging them to let him out, because he couldn't do it, he'd lose control completely if he had to stay here.

At which exact moment Henry said, "I'm very proud of you. I really didn't expect you to be able to go through with this. I wish I could offer you something to help you relax, but we both know that any such drug is likely to interfere with your ability to remember clearly. Just remember, any time that you can answer questions that make it clear you really are here with us, not trapped in the memory, you can ask to be released. But if you can't answer those questions, then it will be up to us to decide when it's safe to release you. Now, before I go, is there anything you want?"

He took an extremely shaky breath and said, "Yeah, the urinal. I should have peed again before I came in here." He was even able to join in the laughter.


	12. Chapter 12

**Afternoon, May 21**

Mulder stood at the window in his room, looking out past the wire-mesh reinforced glass in the small panes. This room, with its multi-paned window, was nearly identical to the restraint rooms in the Manchester hospital he'd interned at. He could almost believe Henry had imported it directly from Manchester. The major difference was the staff. At some time while he was reliving that day in August, someone had remembered they were dealing with a trained FBI Agent, because the nurses now assigned to him all had hair too short to grab, wore sneakers rather than the hard-soled shoes normally required, and had no belts, no pinned-on name tags, no rings, ear rings, watches, necklaces or eyeglasses, had nothing in their pockets, did not wear the "panic button" considered mandatory when you were in a locked room with a potentially dangerous patient, and certainly did not have a key to the door. In other words, they had absolutely nothing on them that he could take and turn against himself or them. Now there was a third person who sat outside the room watching everything that went on in here. That person had the keys and the panic button. The padlock key, for the ten identical padlocks used on the leather restraint system they used here, was also kept by that outside person.

He was so exhausted when he finished remembering the morning of August 29 for the first time--he went back and forth at least a dozen times, looking for when the whole thing had started, and he couldn't _begin _to understand now how he'd not only survived the excruciating headaches, but was actually able to function between and around them--that he fell asleep still restrained. When he woke up he knew it was night only because the lights were on. He asked for water, the urinal again, and said he was going to remember the 29th a second time, because he couldn't really remember the hour just before the incident happened, nor the incident itself. When he woke up the second time, sometime yesterday morning, Henry was there with questions he didn't want to answer and food he didn't want to eat because they were distracting him from trying to remember that same hour and the incident a third time. Then Henry had threatened to drug him and tube feed him if he didn't pay attention to the here and now.

Now he was on his second Thursday in Florida, and Henry was going to let him try to remember October 31 tomorrow. This was the worst "vacation" he'd ever been on, what with him being too anxious to enjoy anything the first weekend while Henry made sure he had the necessary extra staff available for all three shifts, and then being locked in this fifteen by eight foot room since Monday morning, and with his hands restrained by his own choice when he had his teeth brushed, his face shaved, and was fed the gourmet cooking.

So for all its touted luxury, Henry's Place was much worse than GUMC had ever been. Sometimes it was just plain funny how careful they were being. It was last night and he was taking his just- before-bed piss, when he heard this horrified "Ohmygod!" from Martin, who refused to say anything further. But then, once he finished, the "potty chair" was removed, to be replaced by the urinal he had used while he was restrained and a bedpan. When he figured out that they had *just* realized that the commode could be a weapon, he howled in laughter, so long and so hard that he ended up in tears, too exhausted to do anything but pant and occasionally giggle. None of the staff thought it was the least bit funny when he reminded them that the tiny table and three chairs could also be weapons. For his own self-respect he refrained from mentioning that diapers would be a hell of a lot safer than the urinal and bedpan if they were _that_ worried.

* * *

**Margaret Scully's house**   
** 12:00 p.m., May 24**

Margaret carefully tested the coolness of the three cake layers. She needed to get this cake put together and frosted; there were two more to make. Sometimes she felt foolish, offering to do the birthday cakes for all her grandchildren. But they all loved her special recipe, and with three birthdays in late May, the families always did a joint birthday party on Memorial Day.

And this year Dana would be at the party. She used to miss so many family gatherings, what with a case calling her and Fox out of town, or being in quarantine--she could remember three of those, and sometimes wondered if there were more that Dana had carefully not mentioned. But this year Fox was in Florida, and Dana, like all non-essential Federal employees, had the Memorial Day holiday. And, she reminded herself, Dana had said she was not on call if there was an emergency autopsy to be done.

When the phone rang, she was tempted to let the answering machine get it, because frosting looked streaky if you stopped part way through and then came back to it. But then she thought, No, better not. Something tells me this one is important.

"Hello?"

"Mrs. Scully? Margaret Scully?"

The strange voice was friendly, firm, and quite deep. And worried. She put down the frosting knife and moved to the table, gathering her reading glasses and paper and pen as she went.

"Yes, who is this?"

"My name is Henry Converse. I'm--"

"Yes, I remember. Dr. Kennedy mentioned you. What's wrong with Fox?" She reminded herself to stay calm, because Dana would want a word for word recitation if she could provide it.

"He's had . . . a setback. He is *not* suicidal, but he's not too aware of what's going on right now. I need you to come down here as soon as possible."

A fist in her mouth muffled her groan of anguish. She knew the doctor couldn't say much over the phone, given the reason Fox had gone there, but at the same time, it still felt like someone had punched her in the gut. Then the old instinct of pushing aside her worries and problems kicked in: one of her children needed her help.

"All right. Do you want Dana to come too? She's his partner--they work for the FBI."

"Yes, I know. That would be a good idea, if she can come. She should be able to tell me more about what happens when he's using his eidetic memory to remember something that's . . . I suppose the best term is 'elusive'."

She nodded to herself. Yes, that would actually be something Dana could help with. It would make her feel useful this time, instead of part of the problem. Because that's exactly what Dana had said in November, when Fox refused to acknowledge her existence. It was _her_ fault that he was suicidal, _her_ fault he'd tried a second time, _her_ fault for forcing him to remember the details of that case.

"Dana can certainly help with that. I'm sure she's had many occasions to see what happens to Fox when he's remembering something that way. I'll call her and then I'll have to call the airlines--"

"I've taken care of that. I made reservations for both of you on three different flights, because I didn't know how long it would take you to get ready and get to the airport." He gave her the information, then said, "Once you know which flight you'll be on, call here and we'll send someone to the airport to pick you up. One of the guest suites for out-of-town families is available, so you won't need a hotel room."

* * *

**Henry's Place**   
** Visitor's Dining Room**   
** 7:15 p.m.**

Margaret looked at her daughter, who was concentrating her entire attention on the excellent food they'd been served. Dana really needed children to teach her to focus on the important things and let the small problems take care of themselves. But all she had was Fox, so she worried about everything, including the problems that weren't hers.

"Dana, he'll be fine. This Dr. Converse isn't worried at all. You heard him; the only reason we had to come was the formalities regarding the Guardianship, and the insurance paperwork."

"MOM! That's _not _what he said. And Mulder is--he's--" She shook her head, unable to finish the sentence.

"Fox is doing exactly what he came here to do, and he's doing it in the exact way you say he does things like this. He obsesses. He goes over and over something until _you're_ ready to scream. He--"

"But he's _aware, _Mom. He listens to me, he takes care of himself. He's not . . .."

So _that _was what was bothering her. Fox had turned inward so intensely that he only surfaced long enough to use the toilet and be fed--and those only when they placed him on the commode or opened his mouth for the first mouthful. The entire rest of the time he was either sleeping or remembering or . . ..

She was glad Dana had left Fox's room after about five minutes the first time. She hadn't seen Fox, pacing back and forth in his small room, suddenly grimace and put the inside of his left wrist to his mouth, and then his right hand grab the left and pull it away, apparently without knowing what he was doing. She watched the two nurses take both his wrists, holding them so he couldn't do that again, which also forced him to stop pacing. Fox didn't even seem to notice them, just continued trying to get his left arm up and his right hand toward his left. When they let go about five minutes later, after he'd stopped doing that, she looked at his wrists. There were bite marks only on the left wrist, but they were tiny things, nothing like what would have been there if he'd really tried to kill himself.

When she asked Dr. Converse about it, he said he wasn't worried because it was obvious Fox didn't want to kill himself. No matter how bad the memories were, Fox still wanted to be alive. He explained that one side of the brain controlled the opposite side of the body. The fact that Fox only bit the left wrist meant that the right side of his brain, the emotional side, was having problems coping with the memories, but the left side of his brain, the logical or reasoning side, did _not_ want to die.

Which led her around to--"Dana, why doesn't Dr. Converse want to use any drugs to make Fox more aware?"

Dana startled out of her self-recriminations and looked at her. "Um, well, for one reason, if the drug kicks in at the wrong moment, or it's the wrong drug, then whatever Mulder's remembering could possibly become conscious memory again. Dr. Converse says sometimes it's pretty obvious he's remembering torturing Christina, even though he can't remember that consciously any longer. I suppose he'll give Mulder several more days, unless he tries to hurt himself. Then he would have to use drugs or restraints--something to protect him from himself."

She paused, then said, "Oh, Mom, this is what I was so afraid of when he decided to go back to the ISU in January. I'm going to lose him, Mom. This is one time too many, and this time he did it to himself. It's _his _damn fault this time."

She stood up and left the table so quickly Margaret barely stopped her chair from falling over sideways.

* * *

**Henry's Place**   
** 9:45 a.m., June 2**

"So what did you learn, Mulder?" Henry sat on the floor in the middle of his room, obviously comfortable in full lotus position, something that Mulder could no longer do, and Henry was probably twenty years older than he was.

Mulder himself sat cross-legged in a corner, hands in plain sight, no longer even really aware of the two nurses flanking him. Just as at GUMC, after a while they became part of the background; since he wasn't suicidal, he didn't do anything that would make them grab him. He leaned his head back and tried to order his thoughts.

He hadn't learned anything from August 29 because the Compazine had pretty nearly obliterated those memories. As for October 31-- well, Kennedy had been absolutely correct when he'd suggested that he might be able to remember unconsciously what he couldn't remember consciously. Because the first time he'd actually gone past the kidnaping, was leading Christina up to "his" house, before he was able to haul himself out of that abyss. He wouldn't let himself think about the second time. But he had what he _thought_ might be the triggers. Now all he had to do was convince Henry to let him try it again on another case that was haunting him in the same way that series of killings had haunted him.

And he wanted _out _of here. He was going stir crazy. It was now Tuesday the 26th, and he was supposed to be back at work already. Instead he was still here in Florida, because Henry was so damn slow and cautious that--

"MULDER!"

The voice was as sharp as a whipcrack, interrupting his thoughts. He startled, and then he became aware of Morrie and Consuela because they were now kneeling right next to him and they each held one of his wrists gently but firmly in both of their hands, in a grip that made it clear he wasn't going to be able to move his hands off his thighs. He turned his head from side to side against the walls, looking at them, then at Henry. "What did I do?"

"Nothing. Not yet. You weren't here, Mulder, you were off somewhere else, and that's dangerous. Do you remember why? We talked about this Sunday and yesterday."

They had? He'd talked with Henry twice, probably four times, or possibly six if you counted Saturday, and he didn't remember it? And the nurses were holding him with enough assurance that he had this horrible sneaking suspicion that it was not the first time they'd done it. What had he missed? What had he done that he couldn't even remember?!

"MULDER!"

He jumped this time, partly from being startled, but more because he was suddenly scared to death he'd ruined everything, that he was going to end up in St. Elizabeth's, that he'd never get out, that Margaret and Scully would have to take care of him for the rest of his life--

The slap against the sole of his right foot was so unexpected, so sharp, that he screamed and tried to go fetal. But Morrie and Consuela wouldn't let him, and then Henry was holding his head still, forcing him to look directly at the doctor.

"Mulder, it's all right. Just listen. You are NOT suicidal. You've just forgotten how to pay attention externally. You've spent so much time in the past week looking inward, remembering the same two days over and over again, that you're having a hard time staying focused out here. And while you're inwardly focused, we can tell when you're remembering Christina Hernandez because you try to hurt yourself. One hand against the other, because you can't stop the memory so you try to hurt yourself, yet at the same time you _don't_ want to hurt yourself.

"But when you're out here, the memory isn't bad. Remember that, Mulder. We've talked about this, and you've assured me that when you consciously try to remember, it's the same as it's been since John put you on the Clozaril--blurry, with lots of gaps."

Henry let go of his head, and he let himself go limp, sagging back against the corner of the room in relief. When he could think past the one thought--he _hadn't_ tried to kill himself again--he asked, "What's the date? Is it really May 26, or did I lose a whole week? Or did I lose two weeks?"

Henry sat back on his heels and nodded before replying. "It's June 2; you lost a week. But this is the first time you've been alert enough to recognize that possibility. Up until today, no matter what I said, you thought it was Tuesday the 26th. Is there something important about that date?"

"I was supposed to go back to work on the 26th. My vacation was only through Memorial Day." He stopped to take a look around the room, and was shocked at the difference. There wasn't a bed here any longer. There was nothing but thin gymnasium mats covering the entire floor, and the same mats somehow covering the walls to a height that he guessed was probably about seven feet. He wasn't wearing his pajamas either; he had on nothing but a hospital gown and by this time that had ridden up and twisted till it didn't cover _anything. _He tried to reach the gown, to pull it down, but it wasn't until he saw Henry smile and nod that the two nurses let go of his wrists. When he was decently covered again, he gestured at the walls. "Hmm?"

Consuela said, "We had to do something, Mulder. You might not have been suicidal, but you sure as hell didn't think you were in this one room. You kept walking smack dab into the walls and you fell because of that several times; you bruised yourself pretty badly before we realized what was going on and put those mats up. D'you do that a lot? Walking, I mean, not walking into walls."

He ducked his head in embarrassment. Shit. He hoped Scully or Margaret hadn't had to come down here and see him like--

"Mulder!"

"I'm here! I'm here. I was just--"

"Mulder, you were _not_ here. I called your name three times before you replied. What were you thinking about?"

Now he was really embarrassed. "I was hoping Scully or Margaret-- that's Mrs. Scully, my Scully's Mom--hadn't had to come down here. But I suppose that's a futile hope."

Henry nodded. "We went with 'Plan B'--you took your vacation in Miami specifically because John knew me, and I had said that I could make space for you if something happened. By Sunday the 24th, when it was apparent something was going on, you were formally admitted, and Mrs. Scully and Agent Scully came down to handle the paperwork. They couldn't stay long; they had to be home by Monday, Memorial Day.

"Do you remember what Consuela asked you?"

That question made no sense, because Consuela hadn't said anything recently--or not that he remembered. He decided to roll back the conversational tape in his memory, but before he'd even started there came another, "Mulder!" This time he was really annoyed, because he knew he hadn't drifted off. He was up on his feet and over to the other side of the room before any of the three could react.

"For Pete's sake! At least give me a chance to remember! I have to find where that question was!"

Henry stood, coming smoothly and gracefully up just using the power in his leg muscles. He came across the room, stopping about two feet away, balancing lightly on his bare feet the way any martial artist would. "Consuela asked you if you walked a lot. It was the last question asked before I asked you what you were thinking about. You should not have had to stop to remember it. It should have been right there in your short-term memory. Mulder, do you understand at all what's happening to you?"

He found himself remembering what he'd learned at Oxford about memory and how memories were stored--at least for normal people. So he could answer that question. "Sort of. I think almost everything is skipping directly from immediate memory to long term memory. If I'm not paying attention--_really_ paying attention, concentrating really hard on what was just said--then I just seem to drift off. But that's hard to do. It's tiring, and when I get tired, then I can't concentrate any longer." He looked at the psychiatrist. "I don't think I can sustain it much longer. I . . .." Suddenly he was so tired he could feel himself shutting down, unable to concentrate on anything except getting safely down to the floor. He didn't even feel the hands that caught him when he collapsed as suddenly as a puppet whose strings have been cut.

"Mulder, where are you?"

That was the stupidest question he'd heard in a long time. He was in his room at--this didn't look anything like the room been in . . .. yesterday? Or had he lost more time, and even the memory of being transferred somewhere else? No, the room was too opulent to be any place but Henry's Place. "I thought I was in my room, but I don't recognize this as either of the two rooms I've been in. So you moved me. When was that? I think it was yesterday. It _feels _like we talked yesterday, but after everything we talked about, I'm not sure I trust myself on that score any longer."

Henry smiled. "You're three doors down from where you were. Someone else needs that seclusion room a lot more than you do at this point. And yes, today is Wednesday. That's very good. That makes two days in a row you're oriented to place and time. Will you be able to carry on a conversation today?"

Annoyed with yet another stupid question, he snapped, "What the hell kind of question is that? Either I can or I can't. It's not something you have any choice about!"

This time Henry positively beamed. "And you recognized a nonsensical question, and responded appropriately, if a little harsher than is generally considered polite."

He was momentarily stunned by the implications of Henry's last two statements. "I was that far gone?"

"Mm-hmm. Just two days ago."

"So what happened? What did you do, or give me, or what, that I would recover this quickly?"

The psychiatrist quirked a smile. "Something that no decent psychiatrist should ever recommend. I wanted a cheap, readily available stimulant, not too long-lasting, but something that would hit you like a punch in the gut. Want to take a guess?"

He thought about that for a while, then exclaimed, "Caffeine! Or, more likely, caffeine plus sugar. How much? How often? How--"

"Whoa, slow down. We offered you cola but you turned it down flat. However, you were perfectly willing to drink sixteen ounces of iced tea. So it didn't take as much caffeine as I expected. On the other hand, it wore off a hell of a lot faster than I had hoped. Today you've also had sixteen ounces. The thing now is to find a way to keep you this alert, this externally focused, without the tea. Because I really do disapprove of caffeine on a regular basis. Certainly I disapprove of the amount you'd need to drink to keep you alert all day."

But Mulder was already past that, and had latched onto the obvious solution, at least for him. "Running. I run every day. At least five miles, even if I've already hit the high before that. Let me go running around the grounds and I can guarantee that I'll be alert. I'd have to be, given how you've transformed flat- as-a-pancake Florida into miniature rolling hills." He smiled at that and Henry grinned back at him.

"I didn't do that, the original owner did. He was pining for his native Appalachian hills. But those very hills are the reason I can't let you go running. I certainly can't run that far. I don't think there's anyone on staff who runs anywhere near that much on a regular basis. I don't have enough staff, either, to be able to station them at regular intervals around the perimeter to watch you. So no running until it's obvious you're already firmly anchored in 'today'. Try something else that generates lots of adrenalin."

He offered, "Swimming?" but wasn't at all surprised at Henry's scornful, "Fat chance!"

He was beginning to really like Henry. This doctor could turn on and off his bedside manner as easily as he turned on and off his FBI persona. But Henry had at least three ways of dealing with his patients that he'd seen: the professionally distant Psychiatrist, the warm, cuddly person, and the in-your-face street kid that Dr. Kennedy had mentioned.

That gave him an idea. "You do some sort of martial art. What about that? Are you good enough to talk and work out at the same time?"

This time Henry's reply wasn't scorn, it was pure disgust. "Mulder, that has got to be the most immature suggestion you've made in your entire adult life. What do you think this is, some macho--I'm not even going to dignify that with a comparison. You know I've got state-of-the-art workout machines here. Pick one of those. Preferably one that's not too noisy, so we can talk while you're keeping the adrenalin pumping."

He was getting out-and-out pissed off with his body. He'd been injured before, quarantined for a month or more several times, and after every one of those he bounced back quickly. But the head injury last June and then all the other short and long hospitalizations since then seemed to have really done a number on his body. He glanced at the clock and swore he'd get in another fifteen minutes if it killed him.

Henry said, "Mulder, I think it might be a good idea if you stopped. You're obviously close to total collapse."

He merely shook his head and concentrated on his breathing.

But Henry wasn't done. "Do you want me to order you to stop? Are you still thinking this is a challenge?"

It was, but not the kind Henry thought it was. He didn't want the psychiatrist getting nasty ideas, so he slowed down on the manual treadmill, gradually bringing it to a halt. When he could step off he went it to the nearest horizontal surface and braced himself on it while he waited for his heart and breathing to slow down.

Henry sat down at the weight machine nearby and said, "Have you figured it out yet? Do you know what makes your talent kick in?"

He turned his head, looking sideways at the psychiatrist, and answered in between gasps for air. "I had that figured out yesterday. At least I think I have it figured out. But I can't remember anything from August 29th, so I only have the Halloween episode to base that conclusion on. I'll need to make it happen again and--"

"NO!" Henry had leaped the few feet separating them, yanking him up and around so fast he almost lost his balance. "If you even _think_ about doing that without my permission, Mulder, I'll have Mrs. Scully in a Judge's office in D.C. within ten minutes, voluntarily committing you, and you'll be transferred to Florida State Hospital within half an hour after that. Do you understand me?"

He shrugged, smiling ironically at the doctor. "You think you can read my mind? I know a good psychiatrist, name of John Kennedy. He practices in D.C." He was hoping Henry would let go of his arms; his grip was bruisingly tight.

"Mulder, you've been here long enough and slipped into that reverie that you use when you're trying to remember enough times for every single staff member who's worked with you to know when you're doing it. So don't think you can outsmart us on this."

Shaken by that revelation, he nodded mutely. When Henry let go of his arms, he reached up, massaging first one, then the other. After a minute, during which Henry continued to stand in the same place, obviously prepared to put him out if he went off the deep end, he said, "I promise. But I want to get _out_ of here." He looked for a place to sit and settled for one of the benches along the wall so he could lean back against something. "I've already totally screwed up my chances of Kennedy giving me back my driver's license, let alone me getting my gun any time in the reasonable future. At this point I just want to go back to D.C. and get permission to go back to work, because I have to put in three months with no problems before he'll even think about letting me have my gun back."

"What makes you think you've screwed things up?"

"Oh, come off it, Henry! What do you call what I've been doing for the past two weeks?"

"Exactly what you came here to do: figure out what causes your talent to kick in, then get it under control. Granted, it took you an extra week to get part one even partly taken care of. But no, you haven't screwed things up. I've stayed in touch with John, and we both agree that this is more than enough sustained stress to qualify you to have your gun back--assuming nothing happens that requires me to use drugs to help you control your behavior."

He couldn't believe it. "What about all the times you said I tried to hurt myself? Doesn't that count against me?"

"No. Think about it. We anticipated that possibility. You were on a Level III Suicide Watch and you never once tried to kill yourself. Yes, you tried to injure yourself, but you also tried to stop yourself from doing that. You also never really fought the nurses who held your wrists. You were never in restraints after I let you out on Saturday the 23rd. So you're definitely _not_ suicidal.

"But if you try that again without the proper precautions in place, you're not suicidal, you're just plain stupid, and you need to be protected from your own stupidity."

It began to make sense. At least he could sort-of see where Dr. Kennedy and Henry were coming from. "So I have to wait till you let me try again. And since I'm not sure that I know exactly what kind of frustration, and exactly what degree of internal anger and self-hatred for _not_ being able to solve the case are necessary, we might have to go through all my open ISU cases before we find one for which the talent will kick in, because at this point I have no idea whether I can do this with any other kind of case. And _that _means I could be in restraints every day for weeks. Right?"

Henry didn't try to deny it.

"Shit. Shit, shit, shit. SHIT!" He slammed a hand on the wooden bench, ignoring the pain. Did it again, then strode angrily through the room, kicking an errant workout ball out of his way. When he reached the exterior glass doors he put his forehead against the cool glass, then put up his hands and leaned his whole weight onto them. It was nearly five minutes later before he spoke to the door, unable to look at the psychiatrist. "I don't know if I can make myself do that, Henry. Not day after day after day. It was hard enough letting them strap me in every night in the psych ward. And the two times here . . .. The first one was horrible. But the second time I nearly broke and ran. The only reason I could do it the second time was that I knew the next time I did it would be to figure out who was behind the two attacks and what it was they didn't want me figuring out. Now that's put off indefinitely." He sighed and stayed there, too tired to go anywhere, and afraid he'd accidentally break the glass if he just let himself collapse to the floor.

Henry came over, straightened him up, helped him walk back to a massage table, and pushed him down flat. "You don't have to decide anything right now, Mulder. Even if you were to want to try to invoke your talent today I wouldn't let you. You're talking about open cases. I have to make arrangements for the proper authorities to be here, for whatever additional insights you can provide. It will probably be at least a couple of days before any of that can be in place. So relax. Take the time to wander the grounds, say hello to some of the other patients. As far as they're concerned, you're just someone else who's rich enough to go to Henry's Place rather than another hospital."

He nodded and made himself answer that, so tired now that the adrenalin had worn off that he could barely force the words out. "Call Elliot. And Skinner. They'll know what to do." Then he was asleep.


	13. Chapter 13

**Henry's Place**   
** Henry Converse's office**   
** 10:45 a.m., June 6**

"Good morning, Mr. Skinner, Mr. Elliot. Did you have a good flight?" Mulder asked as they took seats.

Skinner and Elliot glanced at each other before Elliot answered the question. "Better not to know, Mulder. I understand you get seasick. Other than that, there were just the usual hassles about our weapons. You know."

Mulder nodded again. At least half the time that he and Scully flew out of an airport other than Dulles or Washington National they had to fight with the airline or the pilot about keeping their guns on their persons. But that was neither here nor there for now. He said, "Sirs, this is what we're proposing . . .."

Four hours (including the time they took for lunch) later, and three frayed tempers (none of which were Henry's) later, one threatened resignation and two doubly threatened suspensions or mandatory sick leaves (and the same number of retractions) later, and one initially _extremely _pissed-off Special Agent in Charge of the Miami Regional Office Saul Cohen (who had _not_ appreciated having his Sabbath interrupted for this blatant insanity) later, they had the plan hammered out. There were no changes in what Henry and Mulder had agreed to for their end of things. As far as the FBI was concerned, Mulder would remain on sick time until he'd finished learning how to use his talent, or it became obvious he couldn't control it--or it became obvious that he had lost control of it, at which point he would start a new Workers' Comp. claim. Then, if he survived that, he _would _take 100% disability retirement.

Elliot would provide SAC Cohen with complete information on all of Mulder's still-unsolved cases, and if none of those were sufficiently . . . horrible enough . . . to invoke his talent, then it was Mulder's choice whether he continued or quit. Cohen would make sure the Miami FBI office supplied enough agents to sit with Mulder twenty-four hours a day, on the assumption that he would not be capable of waiting till someone could get there when he finally came up with enough information to identify the killer.

If he did gain control over his talent, he would stay here, supposedly recuperating, while he tried to use that talent on the ten old X-Files, in hopes of solving that problem. However, he would have no FBI assistance with that, especially not Agent Scully's, because if word got out that he was doing anything regarding the X-Files, then it was better that he and he alone get killed or turned into a vegetable.

There was some graveyard humor then, with Mulder insisting on potato, Skinner opting for turnip, Cohen waffling between radish and beet, and Elliot holding out for carrot. Then Henry stepped in, saying he was the psychiatrist, and he would make the diagnosis. The four agents looked at each other, then nodded in unison. "Not a root vegetable. A cabbage. Definitely. All those layers upon layers upon layers." At which point all five of them started laughing.

* * *

**3:12 a.m., June 10**

While waiting for SAC Cohen to say his end of things was ready, Henry thought long and hard about restraining Mulder on a daily basis for the indefinite future. That was not safe medically, if for no other reason than the good chance of him developing pressure sores from lying in the same position all day, every day. Finally he decided it wouldn't be necessary until or unless Mulder became suicidal. But they would need to protect him if he fell, so he decided to clear everything but the bed from one of the rooms that did not have the exterior glass doors, assign a nurse to just stay available in the room, and have Mulder wear a safety helmet. The rock star in that room threatened lawyers and bad publicity and other kinds of nonsense, but was placated when he told her she wouldn't have to pay the additional charges on a better room. Mulder loved the idea of course, especially the part about only using the restraints if necessary. That is, assuming the new memory was horrible enough to need restraints and Clozapine. He found it hard to believe that Mulder, with his eidetic memory, lived with these obscenities on a daily basis without going crazy or using drugs or alcohol.

Cohen called him Monday afternoon and offered to provide two agents at a time, instead of one, so none of his staff would have to listen to any of the horrors Mulder might come up with. He jumped at the offer, and to his profound relief, Mulder was able to make his talent kick in on the first case and on the first day. He also thanked God that Mulder had his breakthrough while he, himself, was at home, so he didn't have to listen to Mulder's grunts of agony from the headache until the Demerol took effect, nor, when he woke up from that, listen to the litany of torture and mayhem that went with the four killings in Columbus, Ohio.

He only had to deal with the aftermath.

Henry crouched down next to the shivering, nearly-fetal form. "Mulder, do you need the Clozapine--the Clozaril?" He added the brand name, not sure if Mulder knew the pharmaceutical name for the anti-psychotic he had taken. There was no answer, and he took a minute to brief the two Special Agents on what to expect if Mulder went off. Then he got down again, trying to guess through the pajamas which muscle group might be least tense, so the needle wouldn't hurt too much when he injected the Ativan.

"Mulder, I'm going to give you some Ativan. Try not to fight me, OK? Relax, just for this. You'll be asleep--"

"Nooo! I'm not done!"

Mulder pushed him away hard enough and suddenly enough that he lost his balance and the syringe flew out of his hand. He got up, recapped the now-contaminated syringe, and gave it to one of the agents, asking her to give it to the nurse waiting outside and get a new one. He wanted to be prepared, just in case.

Mulder was sitting now, his arms wrapped around his knees, head tucked down, and the shivering had been replaced with rocking. He was saying something, but it was unintelligible, muffled by all the surrounding flesh and the helmet. Damn! He'd have to get Mulder to at least pick up his head, something he suspected Mulder did not want to do.

"Mulder, we can't understand you. You have to pick up your head."

Nothing. It was as if Mulder hadn't heard him. He motioned the two agents closer, indicating where he wanted them, then moved behind Mulder, got down on one knee and got ready to take hold of the helmet.

"MULDER!" Mulder stopped rocking and speaking, so he continued, "If you don't pick up your head so we can understand what you're saying, then we're going to have to do it for you. There are three of us; we _can_ do this. But you probably won't like it."

After a minute, he could see Mulder nod, so he went back in front of him and waved the agents back. After another minute, Mulder's head came up. His eyes were distant, not looking at anything in this room. His voice was very shaky initially, but was always loud enough that the tape recorder would get every word.

"You won't find anything. Not there. Nor at his apartment, if you ever find it. He cleaned up. Really, really cleaned up. He knows how to do that. Read the books, seen the movies. He's gone. Moved. No forwarding address. You have to wait till he does it again. Not now, not July. Probably August. But not later than Labor Day. Maybe Lansing, Michigan, maybe Indianapolis, Indiana. But another state capitol anyway, in the Midwest. He'll do the killings in the exact same kind of building, so once he's killed his first one so you know what city, you can stake them out and just wait. He's escalating. He won't wait five months again. Three at the most, possibly two. If you miss him, the third one will be . . . Christmas Day. A priest, not just a Catholic who looks like Christ. He might even change his pattern and do it at the church right after Midnight Mass, leave the body for them to find in the morning."

Mulder paused, then his head and eyes moved together, like a doll's, until he was looking directly at him. "I have a really bad headache. I'm going to sleep now. I'll have nightmares. Bad ones, but don't do anything. You've got to promise me. Let me deal with them my way."

Henry didn't like it, but Mulder seemed to know what he was talking about, so he nodded.

Mulder continued, "Don't touch me while I'm asleep. That'll be enough to screw this up, and then I will need the Ativan and the restraints and the Clozaril. So you've got to promise me. However long it takes, however bad it looks." He started to lie down right where he was on the carpet.

Henry didn't like that; he wanted him in a bed, where it would be easier to handle him if he couldn't control himself. "No, not here on the floor. You have to get in bed first."

Mulder, who had taken the helmet off while he was thinking, grabbed it and swung it at him so suddenly he barely missed having half his face caved in. Mulder screamed "_NO_! I told you!", scrabbled backwards a few feet, then got to his feet, swinging the helmet by the straps, and said, "Back off, all of you. I'll kill you if you come near me. I swear. Just leave me alone! I have to do this _my_ way!"

Shaken to the core, because nothing in Mulder's record had indicated that he would strike out unless already suicidal, Henry said, "All right. Whatever you say. We won't touch you." Mulder relaxed somewhat, letting the helmet hang at his side, so he asked, "Pillow? Covers?"

The tension jacked right back up and Mulder spun in a complete circle, building momentum before he threw the helmet as hard as he could, straight at the bare wall. Even over the sound of wallboard shattering he could hear the barely in control plea, "SHUT UP! GO AWAY! LEAVE ME ALONE!"

They left.

The nightmares must have been awful. The screams could be heard halfway down the hall and two rooms away, since he'd never thought he would need complete soundproofing. None of the patients who had rooms nearby complained the least bit when he suggested they might want to take hotel rooms--on his dollar--for the rest of the night, and if Mulder was still having nightmares the next night.

Mulder came out for dinner, looking like hell partly because he didn't have a change of pajamas or a razor, but mostly because he looked like he hadn't slept in a week. He went out to the patio, away from the other patients, didn't say a word, ate his food, drank glass after glass of ice water, then, in the middle of dessert, shoved his chair back and barely made it to the grass before he vomited everything up. He wouldn't let anyone help him. He staggered back to his table, rinsed his mouth and drank more water, finally said "Bring me _cheap _vanilla ice cream," and headed back to his room.

He didn't come out on Thursday, and ate nothing they left him except some of the ice cream, usually after it was already completely melted.

By 1:00 p.m. Friday, Henry was seriously considering going in and giving Mulder the Ativan whether he wanted it or not. There had not been a single four hour stretch in the entire fifty-six hours since Mulder had thrown them out that wasn't punctuated by at least one scream of terror. He was making the arrangements, briefing the staff members who had volunteered to help hold Mulder still if necessary, when Consuela came running to the office.

"He said he wanted to take a shower. He asked for his clothes and his shaving kit and toothbrush. He said it was over and he apologized for being such a nuisance. He also asked what the patched place on the wall was from."

Mulder still looked dreadful, and he must have dropped nearly ten pounds. But he was calm and completely in control of his emotions, if not of his body. He was so unsteady on his feet and his hands shook so badly that he just nodded when Henry said, "No shower or shave unless you let someone help you."

When that was over, Mulder asked for something to eat. The chef sent half a dozen different choices, all bland. Mulder ate the pudding and the unbuttered white bread with no crusts, drank more than a pitcher of water, then pushed the tray away, saying, "In another couple of hours, maybe. We'll see."

He started to push up from the table, but stopped halfway and then slowly sank back down in his chair. Before they could ask what was wrong, he'd put his head down on the table and was asleep.

He didn't even notice when they picked him up, carried him to bed, stripped off his clothes and put on pajamas.

* * *

**Henry's Place**   
** Walking the grounds**   
** 3:40 p.m., June 13**

"Can you talk about it?"

Mulder nodded, but didn't say anything until they were on nearly level ground again. "The only really bad part was when I realized that he'd already skipped and I had no idea what city he went to. That's why the nightmares were so bad. If I had pressed the issue earlier, forced Dr. Kennedy into letting me do this even a month ago, then the Columbus police would already have him in custody. Now there's nothing anyone can do till he kills again." He paused, shuddered, then started walking again.

At the crest of the next miniature hill he stopped. "I'm never going to do that again with a serial killer. _Never_. I won't do it. It's just too stressful."

He didn't start walking, so Henry asked, "You have that much control now? You can be sure it won't happen again?"

The eyes Mulder turned on him were haunted. "That's the problem. I _can't _control it with serial killers. All it takes is the anger and self-hatred for _not _being able to figure out what's driving someone to kill. The frustration is secondary. And if there are signs that I'm getting that upset, well, they aren't apparent to me. So if I stay with the ISU, it's going to happen again and again and again. The Zoloft won't touch this. Neither will the Clozaril. In fact, the only reason it didn't happen when I first got this case was that I was already so . . . intrigued by the Mississippi Strangler that I barely skimmed the file. I had to re-read it. That's why I picked it--I figured if anything was going to happen it would be a case that I wasn't already wrestling with. Then I was furious with myself for having put this aside when this guy is obviously so much more dangerous than the Mississippi Strangler ever could be." He turned away, digging at the grass with the toe of one shoe.

"So why didn't it happen still earlier? You must have had cases that were this--"

Mulder swung back around and said fiercely, "They _weren't. _They weren't. Just take my word for it.

"I can't go back there, Henry. I don't care if Baseball Bat Man meets me at the airport. I _can't _do that again."

He took off at a run, but it wasn't even a hundred yards before he stumbled and fell. When he didn't get up immediately, Henry ran over and dropped down beside him. "Mulder?!"

He was holding his left ankle, hissing in pain with every breath.

"Let me see." He tried to move Mulder's hands away, and after another couple of minutes, Mulder let him.

"It's sprained. I'm pretty sure it's not broken. It doesn't feel like either my broken arm or the skull fractures did." He looked around, then laughed and said, "Only I would do something this stupid at just about the farthest spot on your property. I'll be OK. Really. You can even walk to get help. On my revised pain scale this barely rates a two now. I'll just lie here with my feet going uphill and wait till you get back."

Mulder was babbling. That was clear. It was probably sheer relief at having something so relatively trivial to deal with. But he wasn't about to leave him alone either. He pulled his cellular phone out of his pocket and just called for help that way. Then he helped Mulder turn around so that he really was lying with his feet higher than his heart.

Mulder started to protest when he saw the ambulance coming across the lawn.

"Mulder, shut up. This is a psych hospital. I don't have X-ray equipment, I don't have Ace bandages, I don't keep pain killers other than NSAIDs, and you're really not recovered from this past week. So just shut up and let Manuel go with you to the hospital while you get this taken care of the right way."

Mulder shut up.

He came back with his ankle Ace-wrapped, limping heavily, and shoved a bottle of Tylenol #3 tablets across the desk. "I don't want these. Manuel insisted we get the prescription filled, but I won't take them, so you can do whatever you want with this." He started to turn away.

"Mulder, we never did finish talking. I think it's important we do that."

His shoulders tightened, then he kept going, obviously not caring whether Henry followed him or not. "They said to 'RICE' it, so that's what I'm going to do: rest, ice, compression, elevation. Manuel's getting the ice and I'm going to bed."

Damn. This looked like the Mulder he'd read about in John's notes from the early days on the psych ward. He would open up about one thing, then something would tick him off and he'd shut down completely, refusing to talk about anything. He took the Tylenol to the medicine room and gave it to the nurse, then went to Mulder's room.

He was in bed, his left foot propped up on two pillows, the ice pack in place, his hands behind his head, and he was staring at the ceiling with a single-minded concentration like none that Henry had ever seen.

"It won't do you any good, Mulder. You have to talk about it. Are you going to try to use the talent to figure out who ordered the attacks, what it was they didn't want you to learn?"

For thirty seconds nothing happened, then Mulder turned his head to look at him. "YES." The word was literally hissed. "But not now. I have to go home to do that. I don't care what we talked about with Skinner and Elliot. I won't do it here, because that's likely to endanger you, your staff, and your patients."

He propped himself up on his elbows. "I'll take disability leave. I'll take 100% disability retirement if I have to, so they won't think I'm going back to the X-Files. But I _will _figure out what it was they don't want me to know. Then I'll talk to Scully, and we'll talk to Skinner, and we'll nail those bastards! And there's absolutely nothing they can do to me then, because it'll be too late, I'll have the proof they've been trying to hide all this time." He flopped back down on the mattress and closed his eyes.

Henry came over, sat down on the edge of the bed. "You won't be able to do anything if you're trapped inside an insight, or if what you figure out is so horrible you can't live with it. What good will it do you if you're insane or dead?" He put a hand on Mulder's. "Stay here. Scully can come if her presence is that important to you. No one has to know why she's here. You asked for her, and I thought it was important for your recovery. That's all that anyone's going to know. What you two talk about, what you do, is your own business. We'll just be here to make sure you survive so you _can_ get those men."

It was nearly five minutes later when Mulder finally nodded and said, "OK." Then he rolled over onto his right side, facing away. After a second he sat up, carefully replaced the ice pack that had fallen off when he turned over, and said, "Go away; I need to sleep some more."

That was true--he probably needed at least another ten hours to make up for the stress of the past few days--but the way he said it made it obvious that it was also a way to avoid dealing with his problems. Much as didn't like the idea of leaving Mulder alone right now, he really couldn't force the issue. But he left the door open, and Mulder didn't object to that. Manuel was perfectly willing to sit in the hall where he could watch Mulder and use the time to catch up on his charting.


	14. Chapter 14

**Henry's Place**   
** Mulder's room**   
** 11:45 a.m., June 15**

"Well?" Scully swept her hair out of her face for probably the tenth time in ten minutes. Her elastic hairband had popped, leaving her hair to fall forward every time she bent over or looked down. With Mulder lying on his stomach on the floor so he could keep his foot higher than his heart and still have room for the case files that were spread out in a wide sloppy arc around him, she was looking down a lot.

He put his head down, chin resting on his stacked fists. "Nothing. Nada. I haven't a clue." After a minute he rolled over onto his back, looking at her upside down. "These are a year old, after all. I didn't really expect anything to pop up out of my subconscious just by re-reading them."

"So? What are you going to do about it--try to remember them all, like you were doing in D.C. when you got attacked the second time?"

He shrugged, something which looked so strange from her angle that she smiled. Then she frowned. Something . . . something about the first attack and the Jeffries' kidnaping. She was trying to find that niggling memory when she felt a hand on her knee. She looked down at Mulder.

"What?" There was a questioning look on his face.

Shaking her head, she said, "I'm not sure. Something about the Jeffries' case. We didn't get a chance to follow up on it. But I can't remember."

"Didn't get to follow up on it in Lusk? I can chase that memory if you want."

"No, not in Wyoming; back in D.C. Give me a minute." Closing her eyes, she tried to visualize their office. It had definitely been there. It was--after dinner! They had stayed late, gone to eat dinner, then they went back, still wrestling with the contradictions of the police report of a father who'd lost the custody fight during the divorce and had kidnaped his son for a week's vacation, versus the boy's testimony about a monster with green blood that took the place of his daddy, and then "they" brought him home.

And then there was the evidence: the same strange irritation to the eyes and mucous membranes of his mouth and nose that Mulder had once had. But how could a four year old boy be involved with aliens and government conspiracies? What could he possibly have seen or heard that people wouldn't just dismiss it as childish fantasy?

Mulder had been angry. He finally snapped at her, more than usual, and she took that as a sign to leave him alone for a while. When she came back, he was on the phone talking to . . ..

"Mulder, I think you were talking to the Lone Gunmen. I don't know which one, because you didn't say any names while I was in the office."

He sat up, scooting back to lean against the foot of the bed. "When? What were we talking about? I'll chase _that _memory down. And why didn't we get to follow up?"

She turned stricken eyes toward him. She'd gotten to the end of the memory. "It was June 16, last year. Probably around 9:45 p.m. You'll never chase it down. It's gone forever because three hours later you were in surgery with Isabelle Carrington fighting to keep you alive."

He looked a little sick when she mentioned the date, then he literally shook that off and nodded. "Then I guess we have to do it the hard way: call the Gunmen and see if they remember what I was talking about or wanted to know." He held out his hand. "Phone."

She smiled and shook her head. "Nope. Lunch time. You're still underweight. And _I_ refuse to miss any of this gourmet food." She came over to him and held out a hand, helping him stand up, then got down on hands and knees to gather the files and stick them in her briefcase, which would go with them.

"C'mon, Mulder. Let's get spoiled some more."

They didn't discuss anything work-related where anyone could hear them. _Their _work was not suitable for psychiatric patients to hear about. That left them with relatively little; after all, there were only so many times could you discuss the weather, which was picture perfect, the food, which was incredible, the clothes the other patients were wearing, which were all very expensive, or just who those other patients were and their possible, probable, or obvious reasons for being here. And you couldn't do that where anyone could overhear, either.

But this time she had something to discuss. "Mulder, Mom called this morning. She picked up your and my mail, and I got a bill from here. It's _big. _I mean, if you stay here through the end of the month, it could take your entire salary for this year, next year, and half the year after that. Gross salary, not net."

He gulped, looking shell-shocked at just how expensive Henry's Place actually was. After wiping his mouth, he put his napkin aside and said, "Kennedy said Henry was doing this as a favor. How can they be billing me?"

"The bill was for May, starting on the 24th, the day Mom and I came down to formally admit you. I have no idea how much Workers' Comp. will pay on it, but obviously not everything. And to make things worse, Skinner called me because I'm handling your bills and reminded me that if we're working on this together you can't still be on sick time. So you've been back to work as of yesterday, and I had to tell Henry that.

"Mulder, can you afford this? Or will we have to drop it and go back to D.C. with nothing to show for all your time here? Because I don't think GUMC's psych ward is safe. The people who work there aren't screened the way Henry screens his employees. We know none of the people here will talk, but in D.C.? There will be at least half a dozen different groups snooping around, offering big bucks, if you voluntarily walk back in there with no meds, no overt symptoms, and no diagnosis that makes sense."

"I can afford it for a while. Dad left me a lot more money than I thought. All it's being used for right now is to pay for Mom's assisted living apartment and her Speech Therapy. But there's only so much I'm willing to spend on me. I won't short-change her." He scooted his chair back. "I think I'd better go find out just what's going on financially."

She put a hand on his arm. "Mulder, not now. Wait until lunch is over." She smiled a shark grin at him. "Because if you don't eat everything you're served, I'll get you some more of that 'delicious' Ensure you _so _loved when you couldn't even handle a pureed diet." The sarcasm was as broad as she could make it.

Mulder shuddered and scooted right back up to the table. "If I see another can of that stuff, I'll pull out my gun and kill it. Whatever flavor it is. Even chocolate, if I were allowed to have that. Five weeks of that was four weeks too many." Then he chuckled. "Y'know, Scully, that would make the perfect torture technique for people who aren't into simple brutality. Threaten to force me to drink Ensure, and I'd talk. Whatever they wanted."

She joined him in laughing.

About 3:30 he came limping back to his room, looking a little less worried. He flopped back onto the bed, and after a minute swung his feet up. "Why do sprained ankles have to hurt so much when you walk on them, Scully?" he asked rhetorically. "Why can't they just scream bloody murder when you sprain them, then be nice and cooperative and stop hurting? It's not fair.

"I talked with the accountant and Henry. The accountant said I can make payments, and he'll bill me only for whatever Henry decides to charge me. Henry told me he hadn't expected me to be here more than a couple of weeks. He could afford that; he can't afford to keep me--and now you--here free for however much longer this'll take. He said he'd accept whatever Workers' Comp. eventually pays for May 24 through June 13. But as of yesterday I've been paying out of pocket. It's pretty much just "room and board" for the both of us right now, because the staff isn't doing anything. When I try to set my talent loose on whatever case it is--and you might be right that it's the Jeffries' case-- then it'll be the full costs, which, by the way, include one extra person of the patient's choice. So we've got to set this up so I can make it work the first time I try."

He paused, then turned his head to her with a wicked smile and gleam in his eyes. "If we're working, Scully, then we need to turn in expense reports, because we're out of town, right? Can you see Skinner trying to refuse paying on this? Because Dr. Kennedy sent me here specifically for my safety. What do you say- -shall we try it?"

She couldn't believe what she was hearing. And then she couldn't believe the equally wicked smile that broke over her face. "All he can do is cap our reimbursement, but still, anything's better than nothing." Putting herself back into "work" mode, she came over to sit on the side of his bed. "What does it take to make your talent work, Mulder? Is it more than frustration? You haven't told me what happened when you made it work this last time."

He was silent for several minutes. She could tell he was still unhappy about not being able to prevent the next murder on that case. Then he reached out for her hand, and held it while he spoke.

"It's not the frustration. That's only secondary. For serial killers, I think it might only work when all the killings are done in the same place. I say that because for those three cases, what I experienced was an actual killing, in enough detail to know the place. For the last one, which is the only one I can completely remember now, I could walk you around that empty furniture store--assuming the Columbus police have found it--and tell you exactly what he did, where he did it, and what he used to do it. I know I could have done that with the first two, before I took the Compazine and the Clozaril.

"As for what sets it off--it's self-hatred, Scully. For the third case, I was furious at myself because I'd let it slide because I was engrossed in the Mississippi Strangler case. For the first two, it was self-hatred at being unable to get deep enough inside the killer's mind to write the profile that would enable the police to catch him. Those first two cases got to me in ways that very few cases have ever done. Monty Propps was one. I would have solved that one a whole lot sooner, if I had been able to do this back then. Then the 'Gargoyle' case for sure. There might be a dozen others out of all the serial killer cases I ever worked on."

"But I don't know how to translate that to work for this case. Is it one person or many? Is _everything _going to tie to one specific location? How do I fan the self-hatred when I don't even know what I'm looking for?"

He stopped abruptly and his hand squeezed hers painfully tight. His eyes closed while a spasm of apparent pain crossed his face, before he looked at her again. "Oh God, Scully. What if there really _are_ aliens involved? How can I get inside the head of something that's not human and never was? And if I do somehow, what's going to happen to _me_? I don't want to lose myself by trying to twist my thoughts around concepts that human beings can't possibly understand, because they're born of alien physiology and psychology." He let go of her hand and rolled convulsively toward her, ending up curled part-way around her body with his head on her thigh. "Scully, I don't want to die, and that's what it would be if I ended up thinking like some alien thing."

She found it fascinating that he seemed totally accepting now of the idea that his talent was a form of ESP, when after the first incident he'd been so sure he was being no spookier than usual. It didn't take much to figure out that it had been the second case to convince him, at least subconsciously. When it turned out that Warren Richardson had really done his torturing and killing to the sound of "The Bold Marauder", she'd eventually gotten Dr. Kennedy's permission to ask Mulder where he knew the song from. It turned out he had never heard the version Richardson had on tape; he'd only heard part of the original, as sung by Farina himself. He sang her what he knew of it, not even half of what he'd sung while reliving Christina's kidnapping and torture, and the difference was so striking as to be chilling. It was simply impossible that intuition could allow him to sing words and a tune he didn't know. It had to be ESP, some strange ability not only to "become" a killer, but to do so in the past, not the present.

Until this very minute, however, Mulder had never acknowledged that he'd done anything remotely that strange. For a man so obsessed with finding the "truth" and capable of believing the most outlandish, bizarre theories in the cases they investigated, it must be particularly unsettling to find himself an X-File. If he coped by simply denying all of it, that was his choice and she would honor it.

Besides, what else could she do? Force him to confront himself? What good would that do either of them? She found herself wondering what it would be like working with a Mulder who could go sit in a corner and solve X-Files without ever exposing either of them to danger. In the back of her mind, the voice of her conscience was saying, "You love him too much to let him do that to himself."

She realized with a start that she couldn't afford to think about what she meant by 'love him'. Figuring that one out would take more time than they had right now. First things first: survive this test, get a handle on this "talent". Mulder needed her support, not her conflicting emotions. He needed his strong, no- nonsense partner, not a woman who . . . needed him. She could be that strong partner, she thought with inward relief: at this point, it would be easier to continue to be tough and undaunted than it would to admit any softer feelings.

Mulder hadn't moved while she was thinking. There were long minutes of irregular breathing and off-and-on shivering during which she rubbed his back and made "shhing" noises. He didn't seem to be aware of what he was doing, and certainly he was unaware that his head was in her lap. It was more like an unconscious need to be comforted rather than needing her specifically. She had a totally incongruous thought--if Mulder were the type to suck his thumb, he would be doing it now.

Finally he whispered, "What'm I gonna do, Scully?"

"Do you want to talk to Henry about it? Or maybe Dr. Kennedy? You know him a lot better."

His head started to nod "yes", then stopped. "I can't."

After several more minutes of silence, during which his breathing returned to normal and he stopped shivering, she asked, "Why not? Dr. Kennedy will listen to you; you know that."

He sat up and looked at her, looking a lot more like "Mulder" than she had any right to expect, given how upset he'd been less than five minutes ago. "Scully, if you were a psychiatrist and one of your patients who had been suicidal at one time, and who worked writing profiles of serial killers, came to you and started talking--for the very first time--about EBEs and government conspiracies, and losing himself inside some alien's mind when he did his spooky thing about understanding a killer so well he was reliving a killing--what would _you_ think, Dr. Scully?"

She had to smile. There was no other possibility. "I'd think my patient, who I'd finally thought was on an even keel, had just gone off the deep end, and it was time to recommit him. You're right. You can't talk to either of them."

They were silent for several minutes, each trying to figure out how to possibly protect him if or when he tried "his spooky thing". Then Scully ventured, "What about the Lone Gunmen? You have to call them anyway, to find out about the phone call on the 16th. I know they would consider whatever you say might happen as a reasonable possibility. Maybe they can think of something to protect you without interfering with the process."

He shook his head. "No, it's not safe for them. The fewer people who know, the better. Besides, we've kind of put things on hold. I mean, in June and July when I was in the hospital, and then at the ISU when I could only work part time, I just couldn't cope with any of that stuff. It was all I could do to get through the day without drugging myself into insensibility because of the headaches. Then, after the second suicide attempt, I think they kind of got scared they might set me off somehow. We've talked maybe two or three times since I got out of the hospital in December. So I feel OK about asking them about the phone call in June, but not about this."

He got off the bed and started to pace while he thought, but he only made one trip across the room before she saw him wince and walk directly to the table to sit down. He pulled another chair over and put his left foot up on that. After another minute he put the other foot up and slid partway down, until he was resting mostly on his tailbone.

"At the very least, Skinner needs to know. If something does happen to me, then he has to be sure that these people are protected. Who knows what I might do? I could sound and act totally normal, then go berserk and start killing them." He straightened up in the chair. "I don't want you in the room when I do it, because you're just too small if something goes wrong. It would tear me to pieces if I did anything to hurt you, after what I did when I tried to bite out my wrists in October."

She moved over to join him at the table. "So you've decided? You're going to do it?"

He shrugged and turned a bitter smile on her. "What other choice do I have? Either I do it, or we agree here and now that the X- Files are permanently closed and I have to retire from the FBI."

"But . . . but . . . you could stay with the ISU, couldn't you?"

"_No. _I can't go back there, Scully. I can't control that talent when it comes to serial killers, and I can _not _do that again. If I get that deeply inside another serial killer, then you can just plan on me being a permanent resident at St. Elizabeth's, and I doubt even 600mgs. of Clozaril a day will be enough to keep me from trying to kill myself, no matter _how _snowed I am. So it's do this on the Jeffries' case, or retire."

She nodded, glad for him and herself and her mother that he'd finally agreed that he couldn't do any more profiles. "All right." She went to get her cell phone out of her briefcase so Mulder could call the Lone Gunmen. By the time she brought it back, she had made her decision. He reached for the phone, but she shook her head and held it out of reach. "Mulder, you may not want me in the room when you do this, but I'm going to be there. Or you're not going to do it, and we'll close down the X-Files."

He shook his head, but she continued anyway. "Mulder, we can't let the hospital staff be in there. Whether on not they believe anything you might say, if the Men in Black even _think _they've heard anything, they won't be safe when we start to go after them. We already know you, Skinner, Elliot, and SAC Cohen decided there would be no agents helping you with this. _I'm_ not supposed to be here, but I think Skinner decided to conveniently forget that fact. So it's me because I know and accept what we're up against, or it's no one, and you have to have someone in there to guide you, question you--assuming you can actually get anywhere. So it's me, or it's off." She folded her arms and waited for his answer.

He glared at her, trying to get her to back down. She was having none of it. Eventually his glare dwindled to nothing, and then it became one of his "You win. You're right and I'm talking utter nonsense." smiles.

"All right, Agent Scully. Whatever you say. I'll even let you explain it to Henry. If you can convince him, then we'll do it as soon as he'll let us. Agreed?"

She returned his smile and held out the phone.

She went to take a swim because Henry didn't have time to see her until tomorrow and Mulder had been on her cellular phone and her computer for twenty minutes and it looked like he would be there at least another half-hour. When she came back, forty-five minutes later, he was still talking and working at the computer. When he saw her, he waved her over, then turned back to the computer and phone.

"Uh-huh. I think I've got it all. I just finished downloading the fifth file. Thanks, guys. After Scully and I look at this, we'll get back in touch if there are any more questions." He hit the "end" button on the phone, then carefully saved the files the Lone Gunmen had sent, shut down the computer, and turned to her. "We'll need to go into town and get a bunch of diskettes. You don't have anywhere near enough with you. I want to make at least half a dozen copies of this information and send them out to people who will publicize it if something goes wrong."

She sat down across from him. "What did they have? Is it enough that you don't have to do anything?"

He shook his head. "Not hardly. But now I'm positive this is the case that got me attacked. I called a Dr. Fredrika Tanner at Morgantown Laboratories in Denver." He paused to look questioningly at her.

"No, that doesn't mean anything to me. You must have called her while I was out of the office."

"OK. Well, we can't ask her anything now, because she died on the way to the hospital after a hit and run accident on June 16th, at about the same time we got called in on that raid. She--"

"Mulder! How do you know that? You weren't allowed to read that report." If he had gone against Dr. Carrington's express orders, he was going to get _reamed_\--and then she would call Isabelle.

He must have read her face, because he laughed and said, "No, Scully, I haven't read your report. Byers put two and two together when they heard I'd been carjacked, and came up with sixteen. That sent the Gunmen digging a whole lot farther than the stuff I originally asked them to check out.

"Dr. Tanner had been working for the past five years on various government contracts. The guys weren't able to determine which contract might have been the one that got her killed; they were all so intertwined and inter-related that it could have been any or all of them. But she was almost certainly killed because I called her and asked questions about Bobby Jeffries' symptoms in relationship to an article she'd published about six months earlier.

"She refused to talk to me, so I called the Gunmen to ask them to find out everything they could about her and Morgantown Laboratories, and about that article. They did OK for a couple of hours, but by midnight everything was blocked. Computers down, firewalls behind firewalls when they tried to hack into some systems, and for other systems, by the time they got through everything they accessed was virus infected. They had to scramble to keep their own computers clean.

"By the time I was out of surgery and in the ICU, Morgantown Labs had been destroyed when a delivery truck blew a tire, swerved out of control into the side of the building, and blew itself and most of the building sky high. Since there were two reliable witnesses to the tire blow-out--the night guard at the gate and one circulating security guard--and the truck was carrying flammable chemicals and Morgantown routinely kept other flammable and explosive chemicals, it was written off as an extremely tragic accident.

"Dr. Tanner's assistant was found dead at his home on July 8. He was a brittle diabetic, so no one questioned the autopsy finding of an insulin reaction while he was asleep. That was the day after my Care Conference and we knew I'd be making it back to work eventually, at least in some capacity. That made the assistant a liability even if he wasn't going to continue Dr. Tanner's work when the lab was rebuilt.

"All neat and tidy, eh, Scully? And you had no idea what I was on to, because you were out of the room when I made those two phone calls. Anyway, the Gunmen sent what they had, which isn't much beyond what I told you. But just having it is enough to get us killed if it gets into the wrong hands, without other copies being out there." He stood up. "So let's go into town--"

She shook her head. "Sorry, Mulder. _You _are staying here. I don't have transportation because they met me at the airport. That means if we don't want to involve the staff, I have to get a ride to a car rental agency and then go for diskettes, which I want to do in Miami because I need some personal stuff anyway. You can't walk far enough for all of that." She checked her watch. "I'll go right after dinner. No way am I going to pay for a meal when the food here is included in our fees." She changed subjects. "If we can get Henry's OK, when do you want to do this?"

He went to the glass doors, and she recognized his posture from visits to GUMC's psych ward and since he'd been discharged. She wondered if Skinner would let them move upstairs. Mulder really needed a window to look out of nowadays when he was thinking about something. He wasn't there even two minutes before he shifted from a balanced stance to all his weight on his right leg, and it was less than two more minutes before he limped back to the bed to sit down and put his left leg up.

"I'm _really _getting tired of this sprained ankle, Scully.

"I need time to remember the entire Jeffries' case. Thank God it was our most recent one, and we'd only had it four days. There's also a lot of travel time in there, from D.C. to Cheyenne, Wyoming and then to Lusk, and then the return trip. And, of course, my memory stops about 11 a.m. on the 16th. I'm only going to go through the memories once--there's no reason for me to try to look for anything specific, because whatever it was that made me call Dr. Tanner is something I came up with after 11 a.m. So that's not even four full days to remember. Let's try for Friday morning if Henry will allow that, and hope that between what I can remember and what we got from the Lone Gunmen, there's enough for me to figure this all out. Is that OK with you?"

She nodded.


	15. Chapter 15

**Henry Converse's Office**   
** 10:19 a.m., June 16**

Henry surged out of his chair in shock. "You want to WHAT?!" He couldn't believe Dana Scully had actually said that. She was a doctor! A pathologist, not a psychiatrist, but she knew damn well what could happen to Mulder or her if she was the only one in the room with him.

"We want to--"

"I heard what you said, Dr. Scully." He chose that title deliberately. "I cannot believe that in your professional opinion it is safe for the two of you to be in there alone. Give me facts. Reasons. Prove to me that _you _haven't gone off the deep end, gotten too involved in what Mulder wants to do.

"And give me just one good reason why I shouldn't kick you both out of here. You know The Rule--" he capitalized those two words with his voice, "'You have to work on your problems to stay at Henry's Place.' I don't see how this blatant disregard for Mulder's and your safety is working on his problem." He sank back down into his chair and waited for her to put her foot deeper in her mouth.

She seemed to actually grow taller, the more he challenged her. Good. He already knew she was a strong woman, but this proved it. Now if she only had some good reasons, he might--MIGHT--consider what they wanted.

"Dr. Converse, in my professional opinion _as an FBI Agent, _if any of your staff hear _any_ of what Agent Mulder has to say, they will be targeted for death. If those people who ordered the attacks on Agent Mulder even _think_ staff members are involved, you will find yourself and your entire staff facing death sentences. If they think patients may have heard anything, or even if they think the patients may have overheard staff discussing Agent Mulder's insight, then every single patient who was here at the time will also be targeted. In my 'professional' opinion, Dr. Converse, you cannot do anything but allow us to do it our way."

He heard the slight emphasis every time she said "Agent", reminding him that Mulder had come down here on business; business that just happened to require him being in a psychiatric hospital. "Your argument is spurious. My staff do not talk. Period. That is well known and has been proven time and again. Why would anyone think that what a psychiatrist or a psychiatric nurse hears during treatment will be of any danger to them?"

She shook her head. "You don't understand. What we're talking about is not some criminals bent on keeping their operation safe- -and I know that part of the reason you consider yourself safe is that you treat underworld figures too--or even a politician or three who think we've come too close to their underhanded or illegal dealings. We are talking about a conspiracy involving the highest levels of the US government and military, with probable ties to several, if not most, Western European governments, and leading back at least as far as World War II. We have no idea what or who Mulder could identify, and those men will stop at _nothing_ to keep themselves and their agenda secret."

She was beginning to sound like--hell, she _did _sound like--a full-blown paranoid schizophrenic. Only they didn't have jobs as FBI Agents. Or at least they didn't after their illness was diagnosed. "So why are you and Agent Mulder still alive?" If her answer didn't make sense, he'd placate her and call Assistant Director Skinner the minute she left his office.

"Because . . .." She deflated physically as well as in the conviction in her voice. "Because most of the time we're a thorn in their side. We irritate them, show up their weak spots. Every single time we've gotten hard evidence of the conspiracy, that evidence has been taken from us or destroyed. The people involved have been killed or walked away scot-free. Mulder's father was killed. My sister was killed by mistake--that hit was supposed to be on me. There was an attempt to discredit Assistant Director Skinner, have him convicted of murder. I was abducted and held for three months. I remember none of that. There have been several near-successful attempts on Mulder's life." She looked at him directly. "I'm not paranoid, Dr. Converse, not without good reason. Neither is Mulder. Skinner has seen and held some of that evidence. He believes us. If he didn't, we wouldn't still be working on the X-Files and Mulder wouldn't be here with his blessings.

"But a phone call that Mulder made around 9:30 p.m. of June 16 last year was so close to the heart of things that they felt it necessary to set up that 'carjacking' that almost killed him. That attack came before midnight. Have you any idea of what must have been involved to determine that Mulder was finally too dangerous to be running around, find that man who attacked him, find _Mulder_\--and do all that in less than three hours? And the person and place that he wanted to investigate were also gotten rid of on that same night."

He was shaken by her matter-of-fact recitation. This was the paranoia undercover cops and intelligence agents honed to a fine edge in order to stay alive. Whether or not this multi-national conspiracy she was talking about actually existed, there were good reasons for her--and him--to fear for the safety of his staff and his patients.

"That explains the attack on Mulder. Why weren't you also attacked?"

"I have to assume that they knew I had no idea what Mulder was onto. They also knew I wouldn't continue the X-Files myself, if Mulder were dead or permanently crippled by that 'random' attack." She paused, sighed, and picked up her initial argument. "So you see, Dr. Converse, either I go in there alone with Mulder, or he quits the FBI, and those men are free to pursue their hidden agenda. And from what we know about that agenda, it makes totalitarianism and the Nazi 'final solution' look like child's play."

He glanced at her sharply, but she apparently didn't know just how close to home that second comparison struck. If the nightmares that still tormented one of his patients, fifty-three years after World War II had ended, were anything to measure by, then he would do everything in his power to help her and Mulder. He pulled a scratch pad toward him, started to write--and then tore off that single sheet and put the rest of the pad aside. Better to start being paranoid himself, if he was going to help.

"All right. No staff. They'll stay out of it unless Mulder is actually suicidal or attacks you." What he wrote and showed her was, "We'll talk later. Take an after dinner stroll around the grounds."

She started to nod, then glanced at him sharply. "What about you? You're as much at risk as they are."

"Agent Scully, you may be an M.D., and you certainly know Mulder, but you are not a psychiatrist. Mulder is my patient. I do not, under any circumstances, abandon my patients. We'll figure something out."

* * *

**Henry's Place**   
** Seclusion Room**   
** 9:00 a.m., June 19**

"Mulder, you knew this would happen. We talked about it--I'm not going to be able to give you the Demerol for the headache because you won't be able to hold still for me to do it unless you're restrained. So just let Irene put in the IV port and then we can get started." Scully was getting very impatient; she thought he wanted this over and done with!

With Mulder in restraints an IV in the back of his hand or wrist was out of the question. If he could hold his arm still for the injection then the port could be anywhere on his forearm. But extra hands might be needed anyway, so the safest place for the needle to be was as close to his shoulder as they could put it and it still be out of reach of his mouth. He jittered nervously for a few more minutes, then lay down, hands gripping the edges of the mattress until his knuckles were white and the mattress curled up toward him.

The nurse smiled at him. "Good. It's hard to get a tourniquet on way up there. But you've got enough strain in your arms for me to find a good vein." She ran her gloved fingers up and down prominent veins on both arms, then stopped and said, "Can you reach my fingertips? Really try, as hard as you can."

Mulder gave her a "you asked for it" look, then made a convulsive effort to get his teeth to where she was touching his right arm. They had forgotten that he wasn't restrained, and his arm automatically came up, shoving Irene's hand forward so that it banged his nose.

Scully giggled as Mulder sat half-way up, grabbed his nose and said "Ow!", and Irene, totally flustered, stepped back and started apologizing profusely.

"Scully! It's not funny!" Mulder rubbed his nose and glared at her.

"Oh, but it is, Mulder. I can't remember which of the Three Stooges was always getting his nose bashed or tweaked, but this was classic. As good as anything they ever did.

"Here, let's get you restrained and let Irene try again." She turned to get the leather wrist cuffs, then paused as the abrupt stillness and sky-high tension in the room penetrated. When she looked up, Mulder was white as a sheet and frozen in place and Irene also looked shaken. She looked back and forth between the two of them, then asked, "What? What did I say?"

Mulder sank back down flat on the bed, still white, and didn't say a word. Finally Irene said, "It took us nearly two hours to restrain him the second time. We must have tried at least a dozen times before he let us get near him. Henry said to put the IV port in first so we could give Mulder a very light dose of Valium, just enough to let him let us fasten the restraints, but not enough that he wouldn't know what was going on." She paused, then added, "If he panics when the Valium wears off, I'm supposed to hit him with a full dose and we'll get him out of the restraints while he's out. And whatever it is that the two of you want to do will be canceled. Permanently."

Scully looked at Irene, then at Mulder, then back at Irene. "Excuse us please; Mulder and I have something to discuss." When the door was closed, she rounded on him. "What the _hell_ do you think you were doing, not telling me about this? I wasn't supposed to know that you're as scared to death of being restrained as you are of fire? What did you think would happen? You'd lie there shivering and sweating, involuntarily pulling against the restraints, too scared to try to do what you came in here to do--and I wouldn't _notice_? Well, f--" She cut off the epithet and spun on her heel, walking to the far end of the small room to stare out the small window.

She heard Mulder get up and come stand behind her. He was close enough that she could smell the fear-sweat on him. He didn't say anything for the longest time, and neither did she, while she made herself calm down. Then she started to turn and apologize. "Mul--"

"Scu--"

They both paused. She looked up at him. "I'm sorry, Mulder. I shouldn't have yelled at you. But you must have some explanation for why you didn't want me to know."

He looked miserable, hair already mussed, the hospital gown a terrible mismatch to his own pajama bottoms, shifting from foot to foot as the cold of the tile floor really started to penetrate his stocking feet, and without even pockets to stick his hands in. Finally he just let them hang at his sides while he spoke. "Scully, it's not that bad. Really. Once the restraints are fastened I can calm down. They're not all that uncomfortable." He quirked a smile. "Scully, I can relax enough to sleep in them. Deliberately fall asleep. That's got to count for something. It's just that letting them fasten the restraints is too close to what I had to let them do while I was in GUMC." He shrugged. "Bad memories. Nothing more."

She looked at him closely, trying to judge how much he was hiding, how much of what he said was the truth. Finally she nodded. "What if Irene gives you some IM Valium, then we restrain you? Will you be able to try to reach an IV site afterward, or will deliberately fighting the restraints be enough to set you off?"

He shrugged. "I won't know till I try." He went back to the bed and sat down on it cross-legged, massaging first one foot, then the other. "You'd think the floor would be warmer. It's got to be in the 90s outside."

She smiled at him. "But Mulder, it's air-conditioned in here." Then she became serious. "Mulder, intramuscular Valium can't be titrated as closely as intravenous Valium. You might be mostly out of it when we fasten the restraints and it will certainly take a lot longer to wear off."

He shrugged again. "I'll cope. I have to, or I have to give up on ever trying to get the bastards who started all this when they ordered the attack on me."

She nodded and went to tell Irene of the change in plans.

* * *

**6:00 p.m.**

Scully shook her head in resignation. Damn Mulder and his stubbornness. He'd been so anxious that it took a second small dose of Valium for him to even start relaxing. Then he went out like a light, and now he was still asleep, more than eight hours later. Manuel, when he had spelled her for a bathroom break, mentioned that Mulder had refused the offered sleeping pill last night. So he probably spent the night too anxious to sleep, and then conked out as soon as the Valium hit. If he wasn't awake by the time she finished dinner, she would ask Manuel to put the IV port in anyway. They could pick Mulder's head up and try to get it close to his arm, then Manuel could put the port in just past that.

Then they'd undo the restraints and let Mulder sleep until he woke up. Then they would do this tomorrow. And if they had picked the wrong spot for the port, well, then, he would just have to get a second one, in the other arm.

Damn Mulder. It was his money they'd wasted today. But it was _her _emotional energy.

* * *

**7:10 p.m., June 23**

"Mulder, give it up. Admit it. You can't make it happen except with serial killers, OK?"

Scully was pacing in her frustration, something that was making Mulder even more frustrated than he already was. "No!" He lifted his head to glare at her, then let it drop wearily to the pillow. Five days--well, not counting the 19th because he'd slept through that--so make it four days of lying here getting absolutely nowhere. Again and again he'd tried to make his talent figure out what-in-the-hell he'd stumbled into in Lusk, Wyoming that was so important that "they" had decided to stop him. Why not just kill him? Why send that guy with the baseball bat, to cripple him instead? If only--

"Mulder, it's after 7:00; I want to eat. Let's _go _eat, not have food delivered here. You tried. You really tried, but it's just not going to work." She swept her hair back and dug the padlock key out of her pants pocket.

"NO! Goddamn it, Scully, I'm _not_ going to admit that I can't make it work! I've got everything I need. Somewhere in my brain I've _got_ to be able to find a way to make it kick in."

He yanked at the leather ankle and wrist restraints. He was so _stiff_. At GUMC he'd only been restrained like this while he slept. He was up and around during the day. Granted, his hands had been restrained the first week, until he had proved he was no longer suicidal while awake, but still, he could _move. _Here he was restrained during the day and tried to sleep at night. Not anywhere near an even exchange.

"Mulder, stop that!" Scully was at his side. "Just _hold still_ and let me get you undone."

She reached toward his right wrist and he suddenly was too mentally exhausted to fight her any more. He sighed in resignation and relaxed, waiting till she'd let him loose. Then he wiggled his ankles and flexed his legs several times, knowing from experience that if he tried to sit up without increasing his circulation at least a little he'd gray out.

Then he went back to his room to change into regular clothes, because if he didn't, he would have to eat in the patients' dining room. He much preferred the patio, where the cool breezes, the sounds of the evening insects, and the gourmet food served on china and crystal all fostered the romantic illusion of dining in an elegant tropical resort with a beautiful red-headed woman named Dana Scully. He had to admit now that Kennedy was right--it was hard to think of her as his partner these days. He hadn't worked alongside her in more than a year, since the night of June 16 when he'd been attacked. Now she was the co-worker who drove him to and from work, and sometimes to his doctor's appointments, and visited him when he was in the hospital. He would ask her out for a date, but it would be too funny for words, asking her to drive them to . . ..

His glass clattered as he set it back down.

"Mulder? Are you all right?" Scully was looking at him with concern in her eyes.

He covered his confusion at the direction his thoughts had turned with a wry smile. "Still a little clumsy. Being tied up all day does that to you, y'know."

She nodded. "Tell me about it. I think I was dropping things for three days after . . .." She trailed off, turning a bit pale, then finished resolutely, "after the Pfaster case."

He reached across the table to grip her hand comfortingly. After another minute she smiled a genuine Scully smile, turned her hand to squeeze his, then reached for her water glass and took a swallow, and said, "So, is this a good time or a bad time to talk about what you'll--we'll--do when we return to D.C.?"

He looked at her askance. "Return? Who said anything about going back? We're not done here."

This time it was her glass that clattered, as she set it down with nearly enough force to break the stem. "Mulder. You agreed- -"

"I agreed to let you release me so we could eat dinner. I didn't agree to quit. It's just taking longer than I expected." He looked at her directly, refusing to give in to the impulse that said to hide from her anger by staring at his food.

"Damn it, Mulder," she said fiercely, "if you can't do it in four days, you're not going to be able to do it. It _didn't_ happen in one place, it _wasn't_ one person, and you're not some psychic who can read minds with a snap of his fingers! Even if this were a serial killer, you might not be able to do it. You told me yourself, you can't do it on every case, thank God, because if you could, you'd be dead by now from the stress, if not from a successful suicide attempt. So just admit it and let's go home."

He shook his head. "No. I'm going to be able to do it, Scully. The rage and self-hatred are there. It's just that there's something still missing. Something I'm not taking into account. Like--" He froze, suddenly feeling the missing piece drop into place like a long-sought jigsaw puzzle piece fitting perfectly into its irregular hole.

He put his napkin down and stood up. Coming around the table, he held out a hand for her, then, as she too stood up, pulled her after him to walk away from the buildings out into the hospital grounds. He kept hold of her hand and didn't speak till they were more than 200 yards away, past the first of the miniature hills. Then he kept walking as he tried to explain. "It all comes back to the original Purity Control, not the alien clones we investigated later, the ones with green blood that's fatal to humans."

"What good does knowing that do us?"

"Because, Scully, I'll bet you . . . dinner at any restaurant in D.C. you want, that tomorrow when I go into those restraints, I'll come up with the where. Because it _is _Purity Control, and the same person who was in charge of questioning me, is--was--in charge during whatever happened to Bobby Jeffries."

She stopped so abruptly she nearly jerked him off balance. "How can you know that? There's absolutely nothing in the Jeffries' case that has anything to do with D.C."

He smiled and gently tugged on her hand, encouraging her to keep walking. "It has to be. I can't explain how I know, I just know. Remember that Bobby was gone for nearly a week, and the only reason we got called in was that when he was returned home, he told his mother about a monster with green blood that replaced his daddy.

"Scully, I talked with one of those green-blooded 'monsters'. He looked exactly like a normal human being. When they killed him, the fumes from his blood were so strong that I passed out. When I woke up, if my hands hadn't been bound behind my back I'd probably have scratched my face bloody, I was itching so much. You didn't see me till much later. They treated my eyes, nose, and mouth with something and even made me take some kind of breathing treatment before they gave me back to you. I think they didn't want you to know anything about it, because until then, they just let me suffer, as if it didn't matter because they were going to kill me anyway, once they were done with me.

"Now, as much as you and I know those men are monsters, I don't think they would have let Bobby suffer like that if they had kidnaped him so he could be with his father. I think there was an accident, and Andrew Jeffries was injured in some way that made him bleed. Bobby just happened to be nearby, and they had to treat him and get him home to his mother ASAP, because he wouldn't have anything to do with the 'monster' he thought had replaced his father."

Scully was quiet for several minutes as they continued to walk up and down the hills. His legs were beginning to tire from the unaccustomed exercise, so he had steered them to walking around the hills before she finally spoke. "OK, I think that's probably a reasonable analysis. But I still don't see how that's enough information to lead you back to D.C., or for you to do your 'thing'. Mulder, from what you told me back then, you were pretty much out of it for a lot of the time they held you."

He nodded. "But I still heard what they were talking about. They didn't care whether I overheard them; to them I was already a dead man. Or I was until suddenly they got a phone call and they hustled me to a different lab elsewhere in the building to treat me. So it's there in my memory. And it's there accurately, Scully. I wasn't drugged--God, I wish they had drugged me, because I wouldn't have hurt or itched while I was doped up. Anyway, that means I can remember things, from when I came to until they tossed me out of the truck on the bridge. Then I'll have enough information to do a 'profile' and come up with the location."

He stopped, turning to face her. "So, what do you say? Breakfast at 7:00, into the restraint room by 8:00, and done in time for dinner?" He offered that as a joke, but she shook her head, wearing her "Dr. Scully" face.

"No way, Mulder. Not here. If you're going to remember what that green blood did to you, you're going to do it in a real hospital, where we have access to things to treat you. I--"

He shook the hand he still held, to interrupt her and get her attention. "Scully! It's not going to happen like that."

"Oh? Then tell me how it _is _going to happen. Because two of the last three times you used your memory that way you couldn't stop yourself from reliving things. I'm not going to take the chance that this won't happen in the same way." She pulled her hand loose. "Don't fight me on this, Mulder. You'll be in a hospital, and then we'll come back here to finish."

He acquiesced with a shrug. "OK. But not here in Florida. We'll go to GUMC, because that's where you took me the first time, and you'll need those records--assuming they haven't been destroyed. And I won't need to be restrained when I set my talent loose; there's no chance I'll do anything to myself this time. So we can just do that at my apartment." He looked around, trying to figure out where they were on the grounds. He couldn't, so he headed off to his left to retrace their steps. "C'mon, let's go find out when the next flight home is; maybe we can catch it."

He heard her "MULDER!" and paused to look at her. "What?"

"It's that way." She was pointing about thirty degrees to her right, what had been mostly behind his back.

"Huh? How do you . . .."

"Mulder, just shut up and listen."

He did, nodded sheepishly, and headed back to join her so they could take the direct route.

They were about half-way back when Scully said, "It's not going to happen right away, you know. We're going to have to find a reason for you to go in the hospital. You also need to see Dr. Kennedy because you said you're not going back to the ISU. If you're not going to take disability retirement, then he's got to concoct some explanation, based on your 'relapse', that'll let you work, but will keep Baseball Bat Man away from you."

"Won't work, Scully. I'm already back at work, have been since the 14th, according to you." Mulder made one of those noises people use to express disgust with themselves and the world in general, then added, "Or maybe I can just have yet another relapse, and Henry decided to ship me home for Kennedy to take care of it. Sheesh! People are going to think I'm a basket case, Scully. They won't be calling me Spooky, they'll be calling me Psycho." After a couple of minutes of silence, he said, "Y'know, that's not a bad idea. I'm too 'fragile' to work as a Special Agent right now, but not too unstable to work. So we just need to think of something where I won't go crazy from boredom if I have to do it for a year or so. Some desk job somewhere that would still let me have access to things."

She nodded to herself. She'd gotten him distracted, not thinking about letting his talent loose. Because there was no way in _hell_ she was going to let him do that in his apartment. What did he think she was: crazy, or just stupid? Even if he didn't become suicidal, he'd probably kill himself when he fell down, safety helmet or no. She found herself thinking approvingly of his room back on GUMC's psych ward, completely devoid of anything with sharp points or hard edges--and then his last sentence penetrated.

"Mulder, did you say what I thought you said? You'd consider a desk job?"

He shrugged. "Well, what else is there? I'm too young to retire. Besides, I'd go broke trying to live on my disability pension."

She chuckled, then seriously considered possibilities. "You could teach at the Academy. Considering the number of 'guest lecturer' requests you used to turn down because we had no idea what our schedule was going to be like, I'm sure they'd snap you up in an instant."

She looked toward the table they'd been at as they came back to the patio. "Oh, look, our table is still set for dessert and coffee. I refuse to skip that; it'll be our last time, since we're heading home tonight or tomorrow morning."

Mulder looked at her. "Sybarite," he said with a smile.

"No, not at all," she replied with a smile of her own. "Just practicing living in the style to which I want to become accustomed."

They divided up responsibilities while eating. He would call the airlines, then, if they were leaving tonight, pack his things and if she wasn't back, head over to her room to pack hers. She would find Henry and talk to him about what he might write in Mulder's "official" medical record, to cover their change in plans.

She would also, she told herself, call Skinner and try to get a hold of Dr. Kennedy. She wanted things to go so smoothly there would be no chance for Mulder to try to talk his way out of her arrangements for ending this case. They'd come up with some reason to check him into GUMC, something like, say, a broken hip. Yeah. That would keep him safely bed bound for a while, while she and Skinner set up the raid to catch the "bad guys". It was a pity that Mulder was the wrong sex, the wrong age, and definitely the wrong body type to break his hip. Of course she wouldn't really wish that on anyone; it was major surgery and several months' recovery time.

So it would have to be something else. But whatever it was, he would not leave the hospital until after she'd gotten the information about where things were happening. And if she and Dr. Kennedy could come up with a way, he would still be there when they came back from the raid.


	16. Chapter 16

**Georgetown University Medical Center**   
** Room 601**   
** 11:57 p.m., June 25**

Scully listened to Mulder's words slur into garbled nonsense and then silence as he dropped off into exhausted sleep, all the while silently cursing fate. There would be no need for him to try to make his talent work. His eidetic memory had held the answers they needed. But now all her carefully arranged plans to keep Mulder here until things were completely over were shot to hell and gone by one simple fact: Mulder could tell her that they were looking for a four-story building that was within five minutes of the bridge where Deep Throat had exchanged him for the alien fetus, but he couldn't describe the outside of that building so she could find it without him. He'd never gotten a look at any part of the exterior except the loading dock. And loading docks were much too similar; someone--not "someone", she reminded herself, _she_, and she thoroughly disliked driving in D.C.--would have to drive Mulder around until he recognized the correct building. She wondered if Dr. Kennedy would let him have his Driver's License back now. It certainly would make life much easier.

She said quietly, "Screw hospital regulations", kicked off her shoes, leaned back in her chair, and put her feet up on the side of Mulder's bed. His exhaustion came from working out at Henry's Place for two days, along with two nights' missed sleep, to help set the stage for this hospital stay, then remembering every single thing that happened once he'd been exposed to the green blood, but staying far enough removed to be able to talk it all into a tape recorder, as well as being aware enough of what was going on to mumble nightmare nonsense whenever a nurse or his doctor came in the room. Her exhaustion, on the other hand, came from talking with Henry, Skinner, and Kennedy, and then helping each of them concoct their part of the fabric of lies and half- truths that would keep Mulder safe from the Consortium, yet not have him forcibly retired.

They'd rewritten his stay in Florida almost completely, making it what it really was: a deliberate undercover plan for him to try to gain control of his talent. Everything happened as it really did, except the reasons-- She was asleep before she could finish that thought.

* * *

**Scully's apartment**   
** 10:15 a.m., June 26**

Scully picked up her phone and dialed A.D. Skinner's office. Then she tried his cell phone. When she dialed his home, she finally got an answer.

"Skinner." He sounded pissed off. There was an awful lot of noise in the background; it was hard to hear him over it.

"Sir, it's Dana Scully. Is this a bad time? You wanted to know where we were at." She remembered the days before she'd gotten a cordless phone: back then she could twist and untwist the cord while she was trying to stay calm. Skinner was going to be upset at her news.

"TURN THAT-- Excuse me a minute, Agent Scully. I have to talk to the repairman."

It was a lot more than a minute. How long could it possibly take to tell someone to turn the radio down? She could hear the same noise, punctuated by Skinner's voice, getting louder and louder, angrier and angrier--then total silence, followed by "And _leave _it off while you're in my house."

Now what could that have been all about? She knew she'd never find out and resigned herself to spending the next several days going batty trying to figure it out. Oh, well.

"Sorry about that, Agent Scully. My computer's acting up, and the regular repairman got mugged last night. The store sent someone they swore was just as good, but he's a teenager and thinks he can't work without his music. Now, what were you saying?"

She opened her mouth to explain, then stopped. Mugged? _Last night_? First Mulder, then Dr. Fredrika Tanner in Denver, then her assistant, then Mulder again, now Skinner's computer repairman. She remembered the saying "Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence; the third time is enemy action" and decided not to say anything over the phone. "Um . . . sir? Could you please come to the hospital?"

"Scully! What's wrong? I really can't leave while the repairman is here. I thought Mulder would be home by now?" He sounded entirely too anxious, but that would placate the "repairman".

"So did I. However, the doctor can't release him until he's awake enough to at least make it out of his room." She put a smile into her voice for that, then sobered. "Mulder's exhaustion is worse than we thought." That was a good enough lie if the repairman was listening in to her side of the conversation. "When I called to find out what time to pick him up, they told me they couldn't rouse him for breakfast, so the doctor won't let him out until at least five today, or maybe not until tomorrow. I need you to put the fear of God into him _before _he's released. He's not likely to listen to me about needing to take things easy, because he won't feel sick. I thought if you read him the riot act he might behave."

Skinner chuckled, then actually laughed. It was a nice rich laugh, one she'd only heard a few times before. "Yes, of course. I'd be pleased to do that. I should be able to meet you there in about two hours. Will you have your cell phone with you? I'd rather not call his room and chance waking him up if I'm running late."

She nodded, forgetting he couldn't see her. "Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. Why don't you join us for lunch? Mulder doesn't like the hospital food--"

"Do you blame him?"

"--so I thought I'd bring Chinese. I already cleared it with his doctor."

"Chinese is fine. What did you have in mind?"

"Kung Pao Chicken." It suddenly occurred to her that she had no idea how hot or mild he liked his food. "Or is that too spicy for you?"

"No, but I don't really like it. How about you also get Mongolian Beef, if they have it, or Chicken with Broccoli. And chopsticks, please, rather than one of those flimsy plastic forks. Save your receipt, Agent Scully, and turn it in on your expense report."

"But, sir, it's not--"

"Agent Scully, don't argue. Or do you prefer to pay for working lunches out of pocket?"

The reprimand was gentle but firm. If he was going to have the FBI pay for their lunch, she certainly wasn't going to object, so she said, "No, sir. Thank you, sir. We'll see you around 12, 12:30."

After she'd hung up, she washed her face clear of makeup, then changed into a long full skirt she'd inherited when Missy died, a tee-shirt with a Sidney Harris cartoon on it from her undergraduate days, a pair of sandals, and pulled her hair into a ponytail. Then she gathered what she needed and headed for the Internet Cafe, where she could contact the Lone Gunmen using the account she had there.

Her preparations for going there made her smile. She'd gotten the account nearly eighteen months ago, long before any of this had happened. One day at work she opened an e-mail message from "Red@internet_cafe.com", to find that it was an invitation for lunch. She showed it to Mulder and he agreed to arrive ahead of her, to try to figure out who was setting her up.

To her surprise, Byers was there, talking with Mulder. They went across the street to a much more "normal" restaurant. Byers explained, over a lunch that he paid for, that the Lone Gunmen had set up an account for "Red" at The Internet Cafe and one for "YouKnowWho" at Planet Internet--just so they'd have secure access to the Internet.

It was amazing what friends did for friends sometimes.

* * *

**The Internet Cafe**   
** Terminal 12**   
** 10:51 a.m.**

She had to wait more than fifteen minutes for a free terminal, but that made this even safer. Even if someone had followed her here, there was no way of knowing which terminal she'd get. The other three people at the table she was escorted to had all been here when she arrived, and by the looks of things were likely to be here long after she finished. To make things even nicer, her terminal just happened to let her sit with her back to the wall, so no one could read over her shoulder. And if anyone still in line simply turned around and left, an indication that they now knew enough to "listen in", she would just cruise the 'Net instead while here.

She ordered a pot of 'Mystic Mint' tea, her Internet Cafe 'usual'; by the time it arrived she'd already composed and sent her message.

_To: lgm@LoneGunMagazine.com_   
_ From: Red@internet_cafe.com_   
_ Subject: YouKnowWho_

_Guys, I need your help. YouKnowWho did it again and is taking it easy at his favorite home away from home. I was supposed to help him find the set of books he misplaced a while ago. If they're not back at the library today, the library will permanently revoke his card and throw the book at him. (Gah! That's awful; I should have been able to do better. Oh, well.)_

_I figure you'd probably be able to find out where he left it; after all, it's your kind of stuff and you know him so well._

_Red_

She stayed on line--she wasn't likely to use up her ten hours a month after all, considering how rarely she needed, or chose, to play born-again hippie--and left the mail program on; it would flash a message as soon as she got any mail. She had finished two months of accumulated e-mail, most of it spam, and was reading a fan-written story from the alt.tv.forever-knight newsgroup, shaking her head and giggling over the hysterically inaccurate autopsy Natalie was performing, and had almost finished the pot of tea when the mail flag finally went up.

_To: Red@internet_cafe.com_   
_ From: lgm@LoneGunMagazine.com_   
_ Subject: Re: YouKnowWho_

_Red--How nice to hear from you again. I hadn't expected you to be home so soon. How was your vacation? I understand the weather was perfect the entire time. Did you work on your tan, or do you put on SPF 30?_

_As for YouKnowWho, I hope it's nothing serious this time. Maybe this time he'll pay attention to the doctor and behave himself. Whatever help you need, just ask. We're always glad to help._

_F._

Even before she got to the "F." she knew it had to be Frohike. Only he would be so personal--and do that before he got down to business.

_To: lgm@LoneGunMagazine.com_   
_ From: Red@Internet_cafe.com_   
_ Subject: Re: YouKnowWho_

_Thanks. I knew I could count on you. OK, it's a four volume set and I've never even seen it so I can't tell you what it looks like. I don't even know the title or author and YouKnowWho's no help--he's out of it for at least the rest of the day. The last time he remembered having them was shortly after I met your charming self. And we both know how long ago that was. ;)_

_I'm going to kill him after this is settled. I mean, really--highly technical biochemical stuff about the Descent of Man, new variations on the human race. C'mon! That can't be real, guys._

_If I can't find them by 5, I swear I'll drag him down there, doctor's OK or not, and make him find whatever building he left them in--it's somewhere near the Jefferson St. bridge--and then he can just sneak in and look for the books, so we can get them back to the library before they close tonight. He can explain to building security if they catch him sneaking around. Thank God they're from the D.C. library and it's open late. If it was the Alexandria library, I'd just forget it, and let him take his lumps._

_Red_

This time the answer came before she'd taken two more swallows of tea.

_To: Red@internet_cafe.com_   
_ From: lgm@LoneGunMagazine.com_   
_ Subject: Re: YouKnowWho_

_Red, he certainly made a mess of things, didn't he? Not much to go on. But if he thinks he left them in one of the buildings around there, then it stands to reason someone saw him and them. Of course, if that was '94, there's almost no likelihood they'll remember him, is there? It's not like you with your gorgeous red hair. The books--now that's another matter. If they're not already back at the library, then someone probably kept them. We'll do what we can._

_You're not going to be there at the cafe all day waiting for our answer, are you? Can we call? Can I call? Or, better still, can I deliver them to you personally?_

_F._

[Oh, Frohike, don't you _ever_ give up?] She shook her head and sent her final message.

_To: lgm@LoneGunMagazine.com_   
_ From: Red@internet_cafe.com_   
_ Subject: Re: YouKnowWho_

_I'll probably be with YouKnowWho off and on during the day, giving him a piece of my mind for doing this to himself. We already had plans for a working lunch with the boss; now he'll be coming to meet us, and you know how tiny the rooms are there. So it's probably not a good idea to come over between, say, noon and 1:30. Other than that, call or, if you have to, come over. We--the boss and I--can go pick up the books ourselves. We'll have a better chance of getting what we want than YouKnowWho, anyway--they'd just laugh and toss him out on his ass._

_Red_

* * *

**Georgetown University Medical Center**   
** Room 601 12:14 p.m.**

Mulder was on the sixth floor, on the same Neurological unit where he'd been last year for the end of his first hospital stay and for every stay since then except when he was on the psych ward. Exhaustion wasn't a neurological problem, so Skinner stopped at the nurses' station to say hello and find out what was going on. The ward secretary waved off his questions with a quick "His nurse is in his room; he'll answer all your questions." Then she grinned. "Mulder's a whole lot nicer this time around, Mr. Skinner. Hard to believe that he can be so easy to take care of. 'Course he's been asleep the entire time. Hard to be stubborn and uncooperative when you're asleep."

He returned her smile. "I'll be sure to tell him how glad you are to see him again." They both laughed, and he headed down the hall to the last room on the left.

The door was open so he went in. Mulder looked as exhausted as he was supposed to be. His face looked old, years older than his chronological age. Skinner had thought that the time away from the ISU and writing profiles would be good for Mulder; instead, the nearly three weeks since he and Mike Elliot had flown down to Florida seemed to have been more stressful than the entire five months since he went back to work after being threatened.

Gary, one of the few nurses who had been able to get Mulder to cooperate when he had been here the first time, was on the far side of the bed, fastening the blood pressure cuff around his right arm. He looked up, frowned for a second, then smiled. "Mr. Skinner, right? You're Mulder's boss. I'll be with you in a minute." He looked down while positioning the stethoscope on the inside of Mulder's elbow, then looked at the mercury column on the wall while pumping up the cuff.

Both of them were startled when Mulder yelped, coming awake and trying to simultaneously pull his arm loose, scoot away across the bed, and look wildly around him. Gary's hands went to Mulder's shoulders, trying to hold him still, while Skinner said, "Mulder--"

But Mulder had already stopped trying to get away. He let out a "whoosh" of breath and started to run his left hand through his hair, then stopped, presumably because he felt the IV and tape catching. He looked at the nurse. "You're . . . Gary. Sorry 'bout that. Your timing was lousy. Don't ever inflate a BP cuff on someone when they're dreaming about being tied up. You're lucky I didn't take a swing at you." He added, "You might want to come back in about fifteen minutes, when my heart rate and blood pressure are back down to somewhere near normal."

Gary unwrapped the cuff and put it away, saying, "It'll have to wait until after lunch then. I'll probably come back around 1:30. You'd better try to stay awake because if you don't eat everything, doctor's orders are for us to get at least two cans of Ensure down you before shift change. He didn't care whether you drank them or we had to put an NG tube down, he just won't let you miss five straight meals on top of all the meals you said you missed in the last week." When Mulder scowled, Gary put up his hands. "Don't blame _me_, Mulder. You're the one that worked yourself into exhaustion. And if you'd eaten breakfast on the airplane yesterday, like Agent Scully wanted, then we'd have left you alone until after supper tonight. So it's up to you to stay awake long enough to eat lunch."

Skinner decided to deflect the outburst he could see that Mulder was preparing to unleash. "Agent Mulder," Mulder's head whipped around so fast it was obvious he had no idea Skinner was in the room, "Agent Scully said something about Kung Pao Chicken, and that she had things she wanted to discuss. We'll make sure you eat."

Mulder nodded once before turning back to the nurse. "Can I get out of bed and walk around?"

"Wait until at least a half hour after you finish eating. The Dextrose in your IV isn't enough by itself. Your blood sugar is probably low enough you'll faint if you try anything now." Mulder scowled again but nodded, and Gary turned to gather his equipment before leaving the room.

"Agent Mul--"

"Mulder, I'm here." Scully's cheerful voice at the door broke the mood. Skinner could feel himself smiling and Mulder's grin was entirely too happy for the serious business they had to discuss. Gary, too, smiled, then greeted Scully and left.

"What's going on here, Agent Scully?" Skinner looked at her over the food they were carefully dishing out onto the plates the ward secretary had given them. "What's he--" He pointed over his shoulder with his chin at the once-again soundly sleeping Mulder. "--doing on this ward? I thought it was simple exhaustion. And I _thought _you were faking that, or at least partially."

Scully glanced back at the bed. Mulder had raised the head of his bed to a sitting position, but by the time Skinner had returned with dishes and silverware, he was dozing again. While she and Skinner were here at the window sill, the only space big enough to set up the lunch, Mulder had apparently fallen completely asleep. He had slid sideways down the bed and curled over to one side, so tired he didn't even realize his head was resting directly on the unpadded safety rail.

"He didn't actually get to sleep until midnight last night. With the two nights of sleep he deliberately missed, and all the work he did yesterday remembering what happened to him--well, twelve hours' sleep is hardly enough, sir. As for why he's on the Neuro Ward, for at least two years post-injury they consider any loss of consciousness as potentially related to his head injury. Since I had to say he passed out to get him admitted, the ER doctor decided not to take any chances, even though we both agreed it was exhaustion, given the 'medical history' Mulder and Henry and I cobbled together."

She finished spooning the sauce over her and Mulder's plates, and dropped her voice even further, causing Skinner to lean over toward her. "I talked to one of Mulder's sources after I called you. He--they--will look for the building Mulder was held in when he was kidnaped in connection with Purity Control in May of '94. If we're lucky, they'll find it before Mulder gets discharged, and we can proceed without him. If we're unlucky, they won't find it, and I'll have to drive him around until he recognizes the building. I don't know how we'll be able to disguise that, though." She dug the chopsticks out of the carry-out bag and proceeded to unwrap them.

Skinner nodded, picked up Mulder's food, put it on his over-bed table, and started to slide that into place. It wouldn't go close enough to him with the bed rail up, so he shook the sleeping agent's shoulder. "Agent Mulder, wake up." When Mulder was upright again, he dropped the rail and moved the table closer to him.

Scully put her and Skinner's drinks at the end of the over-bed table, along with chopsticks for both of them. Then she reached over to Mulder's plate and swapped his chopsticks for a fork. When he glared at her and tried to take the chopsticks back, she shook her head. "First show me you can stay wide enough awake to handle a fork neatly. Then I'll let you have your chopsticks back."

He tried to keep glaring at her, but gave it up in favor of a resigned sigh and picked up the fork.

They only had to wake him up three times, each time because there had been a lull in the conversation long enough for him to close his eyes. In between falling asleep, however, Mulder ate his portion and even tasted Skinner's Mongolian Beef, stating "Too much onion for me." Scully also tasted it and decided it was even better than the Kung Pao Chicken, but would be saved for the occasional times she was willing to eat beef.

She didn't expect Frohike to call for several hours yet, so she left with the Assistant Director, who paused at the nurses' station to tell them Mulder had finished his entire meal. Skinner then told her what Gary had said, and she told him what Mulder had said at Henry's Place, about shooting the next can of Ensure he saw. They were laughing as they got on the elevator.

Frohike was among the people waiting to get on when they arrived at the main lobby. He took one look at Skinner, flinched, started to turn away, then stiffened resolutely and stepped aside to wait for them.

Scully wasn't sure what to do. The three Gunmen had scrupulously avoided letting anyone else at the Bureau know who they were. For Frohike to be willing to meet Skinner meant things were too important to wait until he could talk with her alone. She started to put her hand on Skinner's arm, to slow him down, but Frohike shook his head minutely and turned to join them, walking on Skinner's other side.

"Assistant Director Skinner?"

Skinner's stride faltered only slightly. He nodded but didn't look at Frohike.

"I'm a friend of Agent Mulder. Agent Scully asked me to help her find something that Mulder had misplaced. She said she needed it before five today. I got the impression that she'd want to know ASAP and it's not the kind of information to . . . bandy . . . about the airwaves. So I came over here on the off chance she would be around."

Skinner nodded again. "And have you found it?" He pushed open the entrance door and held it for her and Frohike.

Frohike pointed to the right, toward the parking structure. "We think so. My friends are waiting. If you'd like to see it, we can show you."

Skinner looked down at her, his eyebrows raised in a silent question. She nodded and started for the garage.

As he stepped in the back of the beat-up van, Skinner realized he was taking an awful lot on trust. He was crouched almost double because even the ceiling had equipment attached to it. The short, "scruffy-looking nerf herder" of a man, whose name he still didn't know, pointed at a seat about half-way down the length of the van. Scully followed; she barely had to stoop in the tight quarters. She obviously was familiar with this van because she stepped past him and pulled down a jumpseat fastened to the side wall. The man pulled the rear door shut and took the only remaining seat, across from him and in front of an extremely impressive array of sophisticated surveillance equipment.

The driver's and passenger's seats were occupied. In the darkness of the parking garage, and with no interior lights on inside the van, he couldn't see either of the people clearly. The driver spoke without turning around. "You're sure about this?"

Their "guide" swivelled to face the front of the van. "Yeah. I figure with what we've got maybe the FBI could pull this off before Mulder ever gets out." After turning still further, to face Scully, he added, "I hacked into the hospital computer while they were verifying things. There's a 'Neuro Consult' request from around 6:30 a.m. today. It says 'History of TBI with craniotomy. Diagnosis: non-traumatic stupor; rule out post-TBI sequelae'. Then there's a whole bunch of tests ordered by Dr. Carrington at 8:15. That's why I came inside; I wanted to see what was going on."

Skinner looked over at Scully. She was as startled as he was. Then she started a smile which quickly grew into full-fledged laughter.

"Don't worry; Mulder's fine. They think he slept all day yesterday and last night and should have been awake this morning, when he actually didn't get to sleep until midnight. So his doctor was covering his ass, on the off-chance something else was going on. Dr. Carrington probably decided that as long as he's in the hospital, she should do his all his one-year-post tests also."

The third person said, with a smile evident in his voice, "Mulder's gonna be _pissed_ when he finds out. One of you can tell him; I'm staying completely outta this one."

Scully said, "Finds out which, guys? That he's in the hospital until sometime the middle of next week, or that Assistant Director Skinner and I have wrapped up the case without him?" She looked over at him and added, "Since it's not an emergency, sir, they probably won't run any of the tests, except maybe the lab work, over the weekend. And given how thorough Isabelle is, she's probably got three very full days of tests scheduled. Mulder will be so busy he won't know whether he's coming or going."

He too smiled. Maybe they could plan and execute the raid without Mulder trying to go along. Assuming they could come up with enough evidence to get a search warrant. Not even for Mulder's future safety would he step _that _far outside the law. He turned to the man who had met them in the hospital. "Tell me what you've got."

"We've narrowed it down to three buildings. According to Agent Scully's information, it had to be four stories and have facilities to deal with recombinant DNA and technology for possibly cloning human beings. With that, and what we got from Mulder's ER visit after he was returned on May 13, 1994, we were able to rule out the other four-story buildings in the designated area. The ones we ruled out either didn't show enough electric or water usage, or were highly visible businesses that used all the space for their stated purpose. Or the companies went out of business or moved between '94 and June of last year. In these three, we've got laboratories and some decidedly strange deliveries--and the most alarming set of benefits you've ever seen. Can you imagine a company offering two _months _of sick time per year for laboratory personnel? Or mandatory use of in- house doctors for lab personnel? Or death benefits?"

The driver took over. "That's not all. We traced ownership, and for all three it fans out into deliberate tangles of the same inter-related holding companies. If we had a lot of time, we might be able to trace them further. But you don't necessarily have that time."

Scully said, "I'm _very _impressed. And you're right; that is an unusual list of benefits. I'm curious how you got that detailed information, but I won't ask. All that in less than four hours. OK, what about location? Sorry I couldn't be more specific in the e-mail, but you understand. Mulder said five minutes from the bridge. Of course, that was in the dead of night."

All three sighed in satisfaction. The first man said, "Agent Scully, the file folder on the left at your station."

She raised an eyebrow at that. "Just that easily? So what was it?"

The passenger chose to answer this time. "Construction. You know: there's always construction somewhere in D.C. The other two buildings are close together and there was major road work going on between them and the bridge at that time. Since those were business areas, not residential, the city allowed the construction company to simply close those streets completely at night. The resulting detours and delays put them outside that five minute window you just gave us."

Skinner broke in. "Can we take this file? It would be easier."


	17. Chapter 17

**FBI Headquarters**   
** Assistant Director Walter Skinner's office**   
** 4:12 p.m., June 26**

"It's not going to work, Agent Scully. We don't have enough evidence for a warrant." Skinner was down to loosened tie, loosened collar button, and rolled up sleeves, and still he was sweating. Scully wore a tailored pants suit, still had on the jacket, and appeared cool and comfortable. Either he was imagining the heat in here, or she just didn't sweat. It was not possible that the heat he felt was internally generated from the frustration that had been growing over the past two hours.

"Sir--"

"I'm sorry. But you know as well as I that what we have here was gathered illegally. No judge is going to give us a search warrant based on illegal evidence." He pushed back from his desk and went to look out the window, which just happened to put him near the air conditioning vent. The cold air was refreshing only until the sweat-dampened patches on his shirt became cold.

He turned back to watch Scully. She was sitting forward in her chair, legs crossed at the knee, tapping a pencil on the cover of the file folder they had been given by those friends of Mulder. The tapping slowed, then came to a complete stop. She sat up straight and swivelled her chair until she was facing him.

"Mulder can identify the building. His eidetic memory has been challenged in court many times, and the courts have always ruled in his favor. In fact, the last three times, the defense didn't even bother to challenge. If we get an affidavit that says he remembers where he was taken, and what was done to him there, would that be enough?"

"Agent Scully, are you asking me to _lie _to a judge in order to get a warrant?" He didn't want to listen to this, not from one of his most dedicated "dot-all-the-i's-and-cross-all-the-t's" agents.

She wouldn't look directly at him. "It's not a lie, exactly. Mulder _can_ identify the building. It's just that he can only identify the loading dock and the places he was inside the building. We don't have to tell the judge that."

He came back to his desk and stood there silently, thinking about it. "It'll never stand up in court. If nothing else works, the defense will haul out GUMC's Emergency Room records, showing he had a concussion when you got him back, as well as the after- effects of exposure to the blood. Then, after all that, they'll drag in his head injury, and his two suicide attempts, and whatever happened in Florida, to try to prove he's not reliable any longer. I can't see a judge denying cross-examination. Do you want him to have to go through that?"

Scully stood up to face him, putting the folder down on his desk as she did so. "If he's going to go back to field work, sir, then he'll have to face it sooner or later." She looked down at the desk littered with the folder and their preliminary plans for a raid that would probably never be held, and then stared back up at him. "Or are you going to force him to a desk job, sir?"

Outwardly he didn't indicate how much that hurt. Inwardly he cringed. Workers' Comp had gotten the May bill from Henry's Place and they were threatening to sue the Bureau and Dr. Kennedy for allowing someone as unstable as Mulder to go back to work, especially when Kennedy had said he couldn't do profiles. When they found out that he hadn't even gotten home from the airport yesterday before collapsing . . .. He didn't want to be around when _that_ shit hit the fan. If he remembered correctly, this was Mulder's eighth trip to the hospital in just over twelve months. His various stays certainly must come close to totaling five months. Then there were all the follow-up visits to Dr. Carrington and Dr. Kennedy and that psychologist whose name he could never remember, and Mark Stromberg's fees. The total bill _had _to be more than a million dollars by now.

He looked at Agent Scully, and knew there was pity in his eyes. "He won't be allowed to go back to Field Agent Status, Agent Scully. Whether or not he can re-qualify, we can't afford to let him out in the field. I mean that literally: the Bureau cannot afford to keep him insured as an active duty Field Agent. So it doesn't matter what Mulder wants, or what you and I would like for him; he'll have to take a desk job, or at least one where he only goes into the field a-t-f, to look at a crime scene where there is absolutely no chance of encountering the perpetrators. At least we can say that'll keep him safe from the man with the baseball bat; Mulder won't be getting in their hair any more."

Scully had paled as he spoke, and her eyes were getting suspiciously bright. He gave her some privacy by saying, "I need to find out who's been told I was unavailable today. I'm going to speak to Joyce outside; she shouldn't see any of this." He waved a hand over the mess on his desk then went to speak to his secretary, planning to stay out of his office for at least fifteen minutes.

Scully sank down in her chair. All their work, all the pain and terror and frustration from four years of fighting, and "they" had won. Melissa's death, Mulder's father's death, her abduction, Mulder's "death" and return to life on the Navaho reservation, Skinner's brushes with death and discreditation--they had all been for nothing. They _would be_ for nothing, if Skinner refused to try for a warrant and raid "J. G. Williams and Sons". She couldn't face having to tell Mulder that. She would go there herself, sneak in somehow, and get the evidence she needed to put those bastards away for good--

With a gasp, she realized just how close to crossing the line she had come. Taking justice in her own hands was not something she would allow herself. If these men couldn't be brought to justice legally, at least she would not stoop to their level to stop their crimes.

She dug a tissue out of her jacket pocket and wiped her eyes dry and blew her nose. Then she crossed to the picture of Janet Reno, which she knew had a mirror on its back. A glance told her that she was the calm, cool, collected Agent Scully that Assistant Director Skinner expected. He would never know how close to breaking down she had been. She flipped the picture back into place, went back to the desk and her chair, and began to think of how she could convince Skinner to ask for the warrant anyway.

* * *

**Georgetown University Medical Center**   
** Room 601 6:30 p.m.**

Tami shook her head and pushed the bed control button until the bed was level once more. The patient didn't waken at all while that was happening, just rolled over onto his left side and curled up under the covers once he was flat. His dinner tray wouldn't make his nurse happy--he'd eaten maybe half his dessert and it didn't look like he'd even touched the rest of the food. She couldn't see that he'd drunk any of the milk on the tray, either. Just to be sure, she checked his water pitcher. OK, he'd had about 250cc's of water. Or maybe he hadn't, she thought, noticing the soaked napkin and remembering that the front of his hospital gown had also been wet. He'd probably spilled most of that 250cc's.

She wondered what he would be like when he finally woke up. Jackie, Marie, and Cinda had all said that he was a "bitch on wheels", constantly complaining about something, and about having to be in the hospital in general. And when he wasn't complaining he was sulking. She wondered how his co-workers could stand to have him around, if he was like that all the time.

But Dotty refused to participate in the gripe session. She was adamant that he had every reason to be upset, given how the staff treated him. She said she'd followed . . . Fox Mulder, yeah, that was his name, from ward to ward from the day he had been admitted to ICU a year ago. And, Dotty said, she let his neurosurgeon know that she wanted to be one of his nurses whenever he was admitted and whatever ward he was on. She also complained bitterly about not being allowed on the Psych Ward, even though she knew she wasn't qualified to work there.

Tami decided it must be something else, like lust. After all, even unshaven and with mussed hair, the guy was very good looking. He was supposed to have the most gorgeous hazel eyes, too, but with _her _luck, he'd wake up in time to be discharged before her next scheduled shift, on Sunday.

Oops. She had other patients to check on; no more time for daydreaming. She grabbed the Intake/Output clipboard off the door and filled in the amounts, wincing in sympathy when she saw that he'd only eaten one meal in two days, and drunk nothing but the little bit of water at dinner and whatever he'd had with lunch. Dr. Yamaguchi was notorious for insisting that his patients eat. He ordered I-and-Os on everyone, and his standing orders were for Ensure supplements if a patient didn't eat at least two meals in every 48 hours.

She was just picking up the tray when Dr. Carrington came in. Geez, so that's who this "Mulder" was. Dr. Carrington had been trying to retire for good for more than six months, and rumor had it that she had one "miraculous recovery" patient who she wouldn't transfer to anyone else, and who kept needing her services. She decided that the other patients could wait; she would stick around unless the doctor threw her out.

Isabelle barely noticed the Nurse's Aide. She did notice the nearly untouched dinner tray and sighed. Mulder would be very unhappy, but she wasn't about to cross Eugene Yamaguchi on something as trivial as an uneaten meal. Then she remembered that this was the sixth untouched tray in two days, and began to wonder if something wasn't seriously wrong with Mulder.

She flipped open his chart to the Nursing section and noticed that "Diana Sully" had been given permission to bring in lunch, and that Mulder had eaten all of his take-away Chinese food. Still, that was only one meal out of six. The rest of the nurses' notes weren't very encouraging either. Mulder's stupor had lightened, but he was still asleep all the time unless repeatedly stimulated to stay awake. She sincerely hoped that something wasn't going on neurologically, that he was just so exhausted he needed--she checked her watch--more than thirty-one hours of sleep, assuming one hour for lunch today. Well, he would get a nice rest before his one year check-up started in earnest on Monday.

She gave his shoulder a gentle shake, remembering that he'd always been faster to awaken to touch than to sound. "Mulder, wake up."

There was an inarticulate mumble, so she tried again, a little stronger. This time Mulder shrugged her hand off, adding, "G'way. 'M sl'p'n'". At least that's what she thought he said. With an anticipatory wince, she pinched his earlobe with her fingernails, not at all gently.

That certainly worked. Mulder startled clear across the bed, coming up hard against the raised safety rail and staring accusingly at her. He already had a hand to his ear, covering it. "What the hell was that for? Are you trying to make me believe you really are an 'Evil Doctor', Dr. Carrington? For that matter, what are _you_ doing here? Scully said someone named Yamaguchi was my doctor."

She smiled. He was just exhausted. He couldn't be this articulate, or quite as nasty-sounding, if there were neuro problems. "And hello to you, too, Mulder. Dr. Yamaguchi is your primary physician this time. He called me in when they couldn't arouse you at all when they took your vitals at 6:30 this morning. I couldn't rouse you either, at 8 o'clock."

Mulder took time to move back to the middle of the bed, rearrange his catheter and IV tubing, straighten the covers, and raise the head of the bed most of the way up. "Well, I'm definitely awake now. That _hurt_." He rubbed his earlobe and scowled at her, looking like a small boy whose mother had just spanked him.

There was a sound suspiciously like a smothered giggle from behind her. She turned to see the Nurse's Aide still standing by the door to the bathroom, one hand in front of her mouth. "Don't you have other patients to check on?" The Aide paled, nodded, grabbed the dinner tray, and was gone.

She turned back to Mulder. "You'll be happy to hear that I can report you really are only exhausted, that you don't have any new neurological problems. But just to be on the safe side, and because you missed your appointment last week--" Mulder's gaze had turned fearful; what was he afraid of?-- "I'm going to keep you while I run all your one-year-post tests."

Mulder had started shaking his head when she said "keep you"; now he said flatly, "No. Forget it. I'm not staying here and I'm definitely not taking a bunch of tests I passed six months ago."

"Muld--"

The sound of his door opening interrupted her and she turned to see who was coming in. A temporary nurse--she recognized the distinctive badge of the agency she worked for--entered, carrying a clean glass and two cans of what was probably Ensure. She decided to see what would happen, because on his first stay Mulder had gotten so sick of the liquid nutrition that more than once he had been caught dumping it instead of drinking it. His response to this would be just as good as several of the more formal tests for determining emotional stability and reasoning ability.

Mulder looked at the nurse, and she heard a sharp intake of breath. Then he was shaking his head. "No. Take it away. I won't drink it."

The nurse said, "Mr. Mulder, you have to. Dr. Yamaguchi ordered it." She put the cans of Ensure and the glass down on Mulder's over-bed table and started to pull the tab on one of the cans. "You've only eaten one meal in--"

That was as far as she got, because Mulder reached out with both hands and shoved the table away. The unopened can fell off the table onto the bed, trapping his IV line and jerking it hard enough to pull most of the tape holding the needle loose. Isabelle could see an immediate line of blood start up the clear fluid. She moved the can and took his hand because it looked like he'd dislodged the needle.

She didn't get a chance to check. Mulder pulled his hand loose, and in a voice close to hysteria said, "NO! Don't touch me! I'm sick of this. All of it."

There was blood now on the back of his hand, and more in the IV line. Isabelle ignored the nurse and Mulder, and pushed the call button. When the secretary answered, she said, loud enough to be heard over their combined voices, "Get the IV nurse, stat! Mulder's dislodged his IV." Then she shut off the IV pump, and tried again to take his hand, ignoring the fact that she wasn't wearing gloves. "Mulder, give me your hand; you've--"

The instant she touched him he started pounding his fists on the bed, saying, "No, No, NO, _NO_! Go away! I don't want any more needles, I don't want any more nurses, I just want to be left alone."

The nurse was beside her now, holding out a pair of gloves. She took them and quickly pulled them on while the nurse tried to trap Mulder's arm. Together the two of them were finally able to capture it and hold it still. While she was pulling the last of the tape off and carefully removing the needle, Mulder's voice had risen to a howl of protest, and he was alternately pushing and pulling at their hands with his free hand. When the needle came out, releasing a fine spray of blood because of his now sky- high blood pressure, he froze for an instant and then was trying even harder to get free, using his right hand and both feet to try to scoot across the bed, away from his own blood-covered left hand.

Then the IV nurse was there, along with two security guards that the secretary must have called because of the noise. The guards paused only long enough to get gloves out of the dispenser boxes by the bathroom door and then, in a coordinated effort, dropped the far bed rail, grabbed Mulder, and held him in place and his right arm out where he couldn't harm anyone.

Isabelle let go as the nurse took hold of his bloody left hand with one hand, her other ready with a folded gauze to put pressure on the site where the IV had been.

She stepped back to find another nurse at her side holding a filled syringe, saying "Valium." She nodded and took it, and turned back to the drama still playing out on the bed. Mulder must have caught sight of the syringe, because suddenly his voice was high and terrified.

"*NOOOOO*! No more Ativan! No more restraints! _Please. _I'm not suicidal. I'm not going to hurt myself, I'm not! I'm not, I'm not . . .."

She went for the only place readily accessible, slowly injecting the drug into the arm the security guards held. Mulder's voice trailed off and she could see and feel him relaxing as the Valium gradually took hold.

Then she could leave the nurses to clean up Mulder and the bed, while she tried to figure out just what the heck had actually happened here so her Incident Report would make some semblance of sense. She got Mulder's chart out from under the bed where it had been kicked in all the commotion, and back at the nurses' station wrote an order for a referral to John Kennedy. Then she tried to call Dana Scully, to find out if she had any idea why Mulder would suddenly go ballistic at the sight of a can of Ensure.

When she couldn't get Dana, and couldn't get Assistant Director Skinner, and the security officer at the FBI simply said that both of them were unavailable, she really started to worry.

She told the ward secretary to phone Dr. Kennedy and tell him she wanted him to see Mulder tomorrow if at all possible, even though it was Saturday, and that she hadn't been able to get a hold of Dana Scully or Mr. Skinner. Then she added orders for when the Valium wore off, which would probably be some time after 11 tonight. When the temporary nurse asked her what to do about the Ensure, she said, "Put the NG tube in. We've got to get some calories in him, especially after that outburst." Last, and only grudgingly, and with deep concern for what it would do to Mulder when he realized what had been done, she ordered the soft wrist restraints that would prevent him from pulling out the NG tube or injuring himself.

Then, when everything was taken care of, she allowed herself to wonder if, after all, Mulder might _not _have permanent brain damage, so subtle and so minute that it was only showing up now, and only when he was under stress. She shook her head. Those were things to worry about when he calmed down and could talk to her. But those thoughts were still enough to make her open Mulder's chart again, ordering four of the tests she'd requested this morning to be done "stat", not as soon as convenient, and adding "IV sedation as necessary."

As she was leaving, heading home for her husband and the dinner he would have waiting because she'd called to say she was on her way, she thought again about transferring her last patient to Sharon Ferraro. From things the nurses had said last year in June and July, Mulder obviously respected her. Would it really be so terrible if she let Sharon take over, and then, when Mulder was calmed down, let him know that she had retired? She sighed, a long, drawn-out sigh, and shook her head. She knew she would never do it.

Mulder, by all rights, should be bedridden and helpless in some nursing home, periodically wracked by grand mal seizures. The fact that he not only was not a vegetable, he was working at his pre-injury profession, made him only her fourth "miracle" in nearly thirty-five years as a Neurosurgeon. Given that the other three miracles--people who were severely injured but recovered enough to return to a "normal" life after months and months of therapy--worked at reduced capacity due to residual physical or mental limitations, and Mulder not only worked full time at an extremely stressful job, solving crimes too horrible for her to contemplate, but he had never needed comprehensive rehabilitation, he truly was a miracle. How could she turn her back on him when he needed her?

* * *

**8:53 a.m., June 27**

Mulder woke up just enough to realize his mouth tasted awful, his left hand hurt, and he was on his back. He'd spent more than enough time being on his back at Henry's Place, so he rolled over. Or rather, he started to roll over and was stopped when his arms wouldn't move. When a strong tug confirmed that yes, he really was restrained, it was more than he could bear. The tears started and there was nothing he could do to stop them. He couldn't do anything about the tears pooling on his face or the stuffy, runny nose either, and that made him cry even harder.

Between gasps for breath he heard footsteps in the hall that got louder and louder, so it was no surprise when they came into his room. He was trying unsuccessfully to choke back the sobs when he felt tissues being stuffed in his right hand and the jerk that said his wrist restraint had been untied. He rolled away from that person, curling up over his still-restrained left arm and just continued to cry. The tissues were ignored in favor of burying his head in the pillow.

When his sobs had reduced themselves to occasional, his eyes were sore from being scrubbed against the pillowcase, and his nose was running like he had the world's worst cold, he became aware that both his arms were free and that the back of his left hand was really sore from being squashed between the bed and the pillow he was clutching so tightly.

More tissues were pressed into his hand and he finally took them, using them to blow his nose. That hurt--he hadn't been aware of the NG tube--and being forcibly reminded of it was enough to set him crying again.

The sudden shock of his hands being enveloped in someone else's hands, and the sound of Dr. Kennedy's "Mulder, let go or I'll have to restrain you again," brought him to the realization that he'd clawed loose the tape holding the NG tube to his face and was trying to pull the tube itself out.

"Out. Now." He couldn't say more than those two gasped words, but the psychiatrist seemed to understand anyway.

"If you stop pulling on the tube I'll see what I can do. No promises, Mulder; I'm not your primary physician this time."

Kennedy's hands released his when he nodded, and he was slowly able to unclench his fists. He was on his back, sniffling and staring blearily at the ceiling, when Kennedy spoke again.

"Mulder, why do you want the NG tube out so badly? It's there because you were too exhausted to eat."

The rational explanation wasn't what he wanted to hear. Before he could stop himself he'd grabbed at the bed rails to haul himself into a sitting position. His hands would neither open far enough nor grip tightly enough for that, and suddenly that little personal failure was the last straw. He heard himself scream, "I DON'T WANT IT!! I don't want _any_ of this any more!" His voice dropped back to normal. "I just want my life back. Is that too much to ask for? I want to be in my own apartment, and I want to eat what _I_ want when _I_ want it. I want to sleep in _my_ bed. I want _my_ TV, and I want to watch what _I_ like. I want real iced tea and real coffee! I want to be able to go where I want, when I want. I want my driver's license back! I want . . . I don't know what I want, but it's not this, and I just can't take it anymore." He could feel tears again and he didn't care. "I want to go back to work, MY work, with nobody threatening me, telling me I can't do this and I can't do that! I WANT MY LIFE BACK!!!"

He curled up into a tight ball, hugging himself and crying for all the things that he hadn't cried for every day since that man had attacked him. He cried for having to stay in the hospital so long, so many different times. He cried for the headaches and for needing the Demerol and morphine that robbed him of the ability to think clearly while stopping the agony.

He cried for his lost dignity when he'd had to let the nurses take care of him.

He cried for the pain he'd caused Margaret Scully when he'd had the horrible nightmares, and when he'd told her he was moving back to his own apartment, and while she was his Guardian.

He cried for himself, for agreeing to go back to the Investigative Support Unit after finally having gotten out of there so many years ago.

He cried for being so weak he'd tried to kill himself.

He cried for all the things he had had planned that he hadn't been able to do.

He cried for Scully, and what he'd put her through this past year, and because he'd never told her how much he appreciated her.

He cried because he was crying, and he couldn't stop.

He cried when someone took his right hand and took out the IV needle and put on a band-aid. He cried when they took out the NG tube and later when they took out the catheter. He cried when they changed the tear-soaked bed linens and swapped his hospital gown for pajamas. He cried because he didn't even have the energy to say "Thank you" to any of them.

But most of all, he cried because nothing was the same, and it would never BE the same, and he knew it. He knew he couldn't have the X-Files back, and he knew he'd never find Samantha, because he just didn't have the strength to look for her any more.

When he was all cried out, it was dusk and he'd lost the whole day. He rolled onto his back, trying to decide whether he had enough strength to get to the toilet by himself, or whether he'd have to ask for help.

"Fox? Are you all right?"

He would have startled if he'd had the energy. As it was, he slowly turned his head in Margaret Scully's direction. She was reading a paperback that she'd nearly finished and there was a second one on the night stand. It took a while for that to make sense. She must have been here nearly all day, and expected to be here for hours longer. That meant--

"Where's Scully?" Scully never missed calling or visiting him, unless she couldn't, or wasn't allowed by the hospital. If Margaret was here in her stead, then something was wrong.

Margaret slid her bookmark into place and shut the book. Then she put the book in her lap and looked down at it, hidden beneath her hands. After a few seconds, she took a deep breath and looked directly at him. "I was hoping you could tell me, Fox. Dr. Kennedy said no one's been able to reach her or Mr. Skinner since yesterday afternoon. Is there something I need to know?"

He was reaching for the phone at the same time he was raising the head of the bed. When he couldn't reach Scully at home or the office or on her cell phone, it could only mean that somehow she'd been able to figure out which four-story building he had been talking about, and that she and Skinner had gone ahead and planned the raid without him. Everyone involved would be incommunicado till the raid was over, in order to cut down on the chance of a leak.

Damn! She'd promised; she'd said-- She hadn't said anything, one way or the other. Thinking back, he realized how very carefully she had skirted the issue of him going along every time he brought it up. He really must have been close to exhaustion, not to have caught that.

Margaret interrupted his thoughts. "Fox? What's going on? I want to know."

He told her the censored version because it was easier and shorter. "Scully and I were on our way back. I passed out somewhere between the airport and my apartment, and Scully brought me here. It was exhaustion."

She was shaking her head; she didn't buy it. "I know that. Dana told me all about that yesterday morning. What I want to know is why no one at the Bureau is willing to talk to me, explain to me why my daughter and an Assistant Director are both 'unavailable'. I want to know what could possibly be more important to her than being here when you so desperately need her.

"How could she leave you, Fox, knowing you were so close to the edge emotionally?"

He couldn't face the accusation in her face. Instead he inspected his left hand. Whatever bandage he might have had was gone now. The hand was swollen, a bruise covering the entire back, partway down his fingers, and at least an inch up his arm. He'd done a damn good job of pulling the IV needle out of position.

He let the hand drop and said, "She didn't. I mean . . . she didn't know, because I didn't know myself. It just happened. I'm sorry." He sighed. "It's nothing you can help, Margaret. Why don't you go home? You've obviously been here for hours. I'm OK now. Nothing else is going to happen."

"I don't believe that, because _you_ don't believe that. You've been bottling all this up inside you for over a year. You could have talked to me. Or to Dr. Carrington or Dr. Kennedy; they would understand. And if you didn't want to talk to any of us, surely you could talk to Dana, couldn't you?"

"NO!" He was crying again, loud, throat-tearing sobs, and this time he didn't know why.

The next thing he knew, Margaret was sitting on the side of the bed, holding him in her arms, rocking him and murmuring, "Fox, it's all right. Dana will still love you. She loves _you, _not some never-gets-upset-and-cries perfect Agent Mulder, and certainly not because of what you can or can't do at work."

He cried even harder when she said that, but this time he could feel some of the pain washing out in his tears.

When he stopped, it was solely because he _had _to go to the toilet. He pulled himself out of Margaret's arms, hand-wiped the tears off his face, and blew his nose on the tissues she gave him. He started to reach for the glass of water, but she beat him to it, holding it for him when his own hands were so shaky he would have spilled it. After a few sips, he tried out his voice.

"I . . . need . . .." It wasn't worth trying, he was so hoarse right now. He pointed behind her, and she turned to look.

"You need to use the toilet?"

When he nodded, she asked, "Can you do it by yourself"--he shook his head--"or should I call for help?" At his nod, she did just that.

He pushed himself up to standing, then dropped right back down on the edge of the bed when his legs refused to hold him up and he came close to passing out. When the dizziness had passed, he let the aide help him the five feet to the bathroom. Mulder waved him off when he offered to stay with him.

He didn't need help getting back. There was a sandwich and glass of milk on his over-bed table. He got back into bed, lifted one edge of the bread, said "Yuck!" but picked up the peanut butter and strawberry jelly sandwich anyway. Didn't they know that the only decent combination was peanut butter and _grape _jelly? The whole milk was a surprise, because GUMC normally served 2%, but he supposed he rated the "real thing" because he needed the calories.

Margaret left him alone while he slowly ate. It was hard work; he had never realized that crying could be so physically exhausting. When he pushed the table away and slid down in bed rather than reach across himself and lift his hand to the bed controls on the safety rail, she finally spoke.

"'Yuck'?"

With an embarrassed twitch of his lips, he said, "Strawberry jelly. It's supposed to be--"

With a big smile she finished his sentence. "--grape."

After a minute of shared silence, she turned serious again. "_Do_ you know what's going on?"

He decided not to say anything. Anyone could have come in here and bugged the room while he was asleep, yesterday or today. So he shook his head. "It must have been something that came up after the two of them left here after lunch yesterday."

Her eyebrows lifted in surprise. "Mr. Skinner was here for lunch?"

"Yeah; Scully invited him for carry-out Chinese. He doesn't like Kung Pau Chicken and I don't like Mongolian Beef. I think Scully likes it a lot. She had that look on her face that says it tastes really good, but she knows it's bad for you. I'll bet she orders it on the sly at least once a month, and wild horses couldn't tear that admission out of her."

That made Margaret chuckle, and finally relieved the tension between them.

"Do you want me to stay the night, Fox? It's no problem, and that way I'll be here if you need me."

Since he had been planning to leave as soon as she was likely to be gone from the parking garage, he couldn't let her do that. "No, Margaret, you go home. I'm tired; I'll probably fall asleep right away. Unless Dr. Carrington's got tests scheduled that didn't get done because I was crying too hard." He gave her a self-depreciating smile, and she nodded.

"All right. If you're sure."

"I'm sure."

She said, "Sleep tight, then," gave him a quick kiss on the forehead, causing him to blush, gathered her things, and was gone.

Just to be on the safe side, he waited half an hour. He called the nurse's station to ask them to do whatever they had to now, because he was going to sleep and didn't want to be disturbed. An unfamiliar nurse came in, took his vitals, and then said nothing else would be happening till Dr. Carrington saw him sometime tomorrow. As soon as she left, he got dressed and peeked out his door. No one was in view, so he stepped calmly across the hall, pushed open the fire exit door, and went down the stairs all the way to the main floor. There he went out the front entrance and was lucky enough to catch a cab that was just dropping someone off.

They stopped at his apartment only long enough for him to get his car keys and to remember that he didn't have his personal gun any more. Mark had found it the very first day he was home in January, and had driven the two of them to Dr. Kennedy's office, to turn it over to him.

He gave the cabby the address of the garage where Scully had stored his car. He couldn't believe it--the battery wasn't dead, the tires weren't flat, the oil had been changed (that was one of the things he'd never gotten to do), the gas tank was full, and she'd even taken it for this year's emission test in May. She must have assumed Dr. Kennedy was going to sign the DMV form when he got back from Henry's Place.

He headed to her apartment. When she didn't answer, he let himself in with his key and went straight to her top dresser drawer, where she kept her personal weapon. It wasn't there, and neither were the spare bullets. Fuck. He didn't have time to search the whole apartment either.

The Lone Gunmen. They'd give him a--no, they wouldn't. They'd probably even call Kennedy and tell him he'd been by looking to borrow a gun.

He dragged both hands through his hair, totally messing it up, and tried to think where Scully would hide a gun if she didn't want him to find it. There wasn't any such place. She knew him well enough to know that he could search her apartment as thoroughly and dispassionately as any suspect's or victim's if he really wanted to find something.

On his way out, just for the heck of it, he looked in her desk, in the lockbox that held her spare ID, her prescription pads, and the extra wallet-sized copies of her medical license. She was the only doctor he'd ever heard of who routinely ordered extra copies each year, sending in copies of the previous year's "Reimbursement for Lost, Stolen, or Destroyed Personal Property" forms to prove she needed them. There was, of course, no gun. There was, however, a note that said "No, Mulder--not until Dr. Kennedy says it's OK" in Scully's distinctive handwriting.

In the car he pulled out his D.C. map, mentally drew a five- minute half-circle on the D.C. side of the bridge and tried to figure out a logical but inconspicuous route for searching the area. There wasn't one, not if he had to go through alleys looking for a particular loading dock. He'd just have to start on one side of the half-circle and work his way to the other side. Sooner or later he'd recognize the correct building.


	18. Chapter 18

**One block from J. G. Williams and Sons**   
** 11:03 p.m.**

Scully tried to keep herself focused on the raid that should be starting any-minute-now. Instead, her thoughts insisted on jumping on her horse and galloping madly off in all directions at once, a description she'd once read that was completely accurate. Where was Mulder when she needed him? She desperately swallowed a giggle which would have ruined her calm, cool, collected facade. Mulder was exactly where she wanted him--safely in the hospital. But she _needed _his inane asides and skewering comments on the stupidity of the bigwigs in charge of planning a raid, any raid. She needed to be able to tell him to shut up, or just give him one of her often-used "Scully looks".

She hadn't had any reason to use them on him lately. She hadn't had any reason to use them on him at all, for a whole year now. Was it really a year--no, more than a year, if only by about ten days--since they had worked together on a case? It didn't seem possible.

What she wouldn't give for just _one _nice, juicy, totally unbelievable X-File right now. Anything. Really. Even Eugene Tooms, she admitted to herself, would look good to her if he meant that she and Mulder could work together again. She missed that, in ways she wouldn't have believed possible when he was in the coma and then when any little thing would set him groaning in agony and, more often than not, right back into unconsciousness again.

Sunflower seed shells scattered everywhere. Being handed a cup of coffee when she walked into the office on time and he'd been there for hours because of something that just couldn't wait. Calls at 2 a.m. to discuss the case or because he'd had a nightmare. "If he has nightmares these days, why doesn't he call me?" screamed her mind. Filthy clothes, ruined beyond even what the dry cleaner could handle. Even, God help her, having to drag him to the nearest hospital, and then sit on him to make him stay put. Rental cars and cheap motels and cheaper diners. She missed all of that, and she wasn't ever going to get it back, at least not with Mulder.

She felt another totally inappropriate giggle trying to surface and firmly quashed it. She reminded herself of a widow remembering her hus-- Total panic for just a fraction of a second, before she dragged herself back in line. She and Mulder were NOT husband and wife. What they were was partners, a relationship totally different, and much closer in many ways. She was allowed to love Mulder as her _partner_.

With that finally settled to her satisfaction, she was able to turn her scattered thoughts--more or less--to the matter at hand. She tried to ease the chest protector into a more comfortable position. It wasn't possible. Not only was the size "small" too large for her, but her period was due in another two days and her breasts were swollen and tender. Fastening the too-big Kevlar vest tightly enough so that it would do it's job put too much pressure on her chest. It was going to be a _long _night.

She looked at the three people she would be going in with and wondered if she had ever been that young and gung-ho. Jeremy Silver was practically dancing in his eagerness--no, wait a minute. There was a much more likely explanation. Stepping over to him, she tugged on his sleeve until he bent down to her. She whispered, "Better take care of that now, before the action starts. You won't want to be distracted. I'll cover for you; just make sure you walk _away_ from our target, not toward it."

If it had been daylight, Jeremy's blush would have matched his hair. As it was, she heard a very audible gulp, and then, "Ah . . .. thank you. I'll be as fast as I can."

She smiled at his back, as he practically dashed for a darkened doorway. If he only knew how much she envied his . . . freedom. On the other hand, there were definite advantages to being a woman. You could fantasize to your heart's content in public, and if you were wearing a sweater or a jacket so your nipples didn't show, no one would have any idea. Certainly not Mu--

_She _blushed scarlet. What corner of her mind had _that_ come out of? And why now? She'd just convinced herself--hadn't she?-- that she cared about Mulder as her partner, not as . . . the man she loved body and soul. With that sudden realization, she felt all her mixed-up emotions slip quietly and neatly into place, leaving her truly at peace for the first time since--since that gut-wrenching Halloween when she'd had to send him over the edge. She had no idea what Mulder's feelings for her might be, or if he'd say anything even if he felt the same way, but at least she knew her own heart now and could tell the truth about it. Bemused at how simple everything was once she stopped fighting herself, she knew she was ready to face whatever might be inside that warehouse. This raid was likely to be the last thing she ever did in connection with the X Files, since Mulder wouldn't be allowed to return to Field Agent status. It wasn't important any longer-- she knew this wouldn't be the end of the story for her, for Mulder, or for the Truth.

No more distractions, she told herself; she had a team to lead, and they needed her sharp and focused. With that thought, energized by her new-found clarity, she turned her mind back to the business at hand.

They nearly didn't get the search warrant. Skinner had to ask her to bring the tapes she had made in Mulder's hospital room. He said the judge was being properly cautious. She called it deliberately pig-headed and obstructionist.

Judge Garret had heard Mulder testify in court several times over the years. He also knew Mulder had almost died from a head injury, and wouldn't believe he could still remember that perfectly. Garret wanted to hear the tapes for himself. Then he wanted her side of the story because Mulder's voice on the last tape had been drifting in and out toward the end, the most important part as far as getting the warrant was concerned. It was only her repeated questions that had kept Mulder awake long enough to finish telling her what had happened to him.

_Eighteen _hours she spent with the damn judge. He'd listened to every single minute of every tape, and parts of them more than once. And questioned her over and over again, both as Mulder's partner and as a physician, about Mulder's reliability since the "accident". Finally, close to lunch time today, he signed the search warrant. He also said he wouldn't guarantee that it would survive the challenges in court. Several of his colleagues were likely to uphold the defense's request to dismiss unless the prosecution presented the tapes and Mulder was willing to demonstrate that he could still remember everything he'd said, word for word, all twelve hours' worth.

She hadn't been able to call Mulder, who certainly should have been awake by dinner time; she hadn't even been able to call her mom to tell her to go check on him. Skinner had imposed an absolute communications blackout from the time they decided to try for the warrant. That was more than twenty-four hours ago. Mulder would be going crazy.

She hoped that his craziness didn't extend to "escaping" from the hospital. It had been a bad decision to have his car tuned up for when he got back from Henry's Place and Dr. Kennedy signed the form for the DMV. Now he had wheels, whereas if his car didn't run, his driver's license would flag at any car rental agency as invalid. He certainly wouldn't bring an innocent taxi cab driver down here while he looked for the building, so she knew he'd be safe. This way, all she could do was pray.

Skinner heard the confirmation that all agents were in place and said, "On my mark . . . _now_," the signal to his team leaders they were going ahead in exactly fifteen seconds. Half the agents would go through the front door, and half go through the loading dock at the back. Agent Scully was leading the small team that would enter last, following Mulder's directions to try to find the laboratory where he had been treated before being released. The other people on her team were from the laboratories; it had been a toss-up between experienced Field Agents or laboratory personnel who had the background to understand what had been done to Mulder. He'd left the choice to her, and she opted for knowledge over experience. He hoped she chose correctly.

He saw black-clad shapes moving quickly toward the loading dock, and after a glance around confirmed that no one was left behind except Scully's team, he slowly moved toward it also. Being in overall charge meant watching and listening from behind, staying out of the thick of things and hoping that none of his people got hurt because he'd underestimated the opposition. It was a role he'd never gotten used to as he'd moved up the ladder in the Bureau. It was one of the reasons he had welcomed the promotion to Assistant Director, because now he was usually far enough removed from situations like this that his incipient ulcer had calmed down.

"At the front door. Entering--NOW!" The voice came through clearly on his headset.

That was Jack Kiley, in charge of the alpha team, the ones who had the actual search warrant and would try to immobilize the security station before the guards there could sound the alarm.

"At the loading dock. Entering--NOW!"

And that was Elvina Towell in charge of the beta team, finally getting the chance to prove that she was as good as "the guys". He doubted that anyone but he himself had noticed how surprised and pleased she was to finally get chosen as Third in Command. She'd do fine. She would also prove what he'd been saying for years now--the women could match the men any day if you gave them the training and the opportunity, and size wasn't the issue, merely brains. Given the least encouragement from the "old boys' network" at the senior levels, Agent Towell would one day be in charge of all the Bureau SWAT teams. He hoped tonight gave her her first step on that journey.

Mulder was having trouble keeping his attention focused. Every time he turned a corner, or just turned his head too fast, he'd get this light-headed feeling. He knew what it was, it was a combination of stress, exhaustion, and lack of food. The sandwich and milk would have been enough if he were still in the hospital. The sleep he'd gotten prior to today would have been enough if he hadn't spent all day crying. The . . . peace . . . he felt from having finally grieved for his lost life would have been enough if Margaret hadn't told him about Scully and Skinner being out of reach. But taken all together and added to the anxiety and fear for Scully he felt right now, it wasn't nearly enough.

He had just decided that this wasn't going to work, that he'd have to take a break and get something to eat, when something caught his eye. He turned down that street, trying to figure out what exactly it was, then realized there were too many cars and vans and they were too similar. You just did not seen three identical Ford Tauruses in one block, not in this neighborhood. Nor did you see four vans painted matte black, with not a single gleam of metal where paint had been scratched off.

He'd found the raid. He turned the next corner, trying to figure out which way the SWAT teams had gone. The vehicles would be parked at least two-three blocks away, to avoid alarming anyone. When he caught up with Scully and Skinner, if it was before they'd gone in, or when the whole thing was over, he'd rip into them. This was _his. _They had no right to keep him away. They--

His conscience caught up with him as he saw the one building with all its lights on, incongruous among the others with only an occasional light. He floored the accelerator at the same time he was telling himself that he was out of condition, he didn't have a gun, he'd just come as close as makes no difference to a "nervous breakdown". He _knew _he was in no shape to participate in a raid, but it made no difference.

Scully was in there.

He turned the corner into the alley and stopped so abruptly, because the loading dock was at this end, that his car fishtailed before coming to a total stop. He was out of the car and running for the stairs before he thought about the fact that he could be running directly into gunfire. He had nothing to identify him as one of the good guys. He'd be a target for both sides.

He flattened himself to the wall next to the open door and glanced inside. Empty. Not a box or piece of furniture in sight.

This was bad.

He dashed across the opening to the other side, flattened against the wall, and looked inside from this angle. A sprawled body, blood pooled around three separate bullet wounds, two of them in the chest, the third in the head. A shudder went through him at the implication: the guards shot first, without waiting to see what was going on. No way was that man alive. And no way was his gun still around, this close to the entrance; one of the FBI Agents would have picked it up. This raid was going to be a terrible, bloody mess, with lots of dead bodies on both sides-- and he was walking into it unarmed and unprotected. This was close to being the stupidest decision of his career.

When he actually stepped through the door, it wasn't quite as bad as he thought. There was furniture, mostly tables, chairs, and an occasional desk, some already padded for the moving vans, most just pushed up against the far right-hand wall where they had been out of his line of sight. There were also boxes, lots of them, stacked against the alley wall, and there was a half-loaded forklift. He went over to check.

God DAMN! The boxes he could get to held ordinary supplies, the things you needed to keep a large building like this running. Toilet paper. Soap. Still-wrapped reams of copier paper. Fluorescent light bulbs and regular ones. Half empty boxes of sweetener packets, creamer, stirrers, and those cone-shaped paper "glasses" that some offices had at the water coolers.

It was then that it occurred to him to wonder why they were only half-finished with moving. In '94 they must have thought he was too out of it from the fumes to remember anything. Last year they would have thought that with Dr. Tanner and Morgantown Laboratories destroyed and the head injury permanently destroying his memory of most of that day, he couldn't make the connection. So why had they suddenly started moving? And why were there armed guards, willing to shoot first?

They must have known the raid was coming, and the guards hadn't left the building yet. Or-- The guards were a clean-up crew. The movers would be killed, and the guards--or only a few of them, the rest having been killed by their fellow guards--would drive the last vans away. No one who knew anything specific about this place would remain alive. He had a strong suspicion that the guards who drove away would be met somewhere and killed, while others who knew only the final destination would take over.

That still left the "how": how had they known a raid was coming? Had someone talked? Or was it as simple as his hospital room having been bugged between when Scully left on Thursday night and when she and Skinner came for lunch on Friday? With him dead to the world, anyone could have walked in and easily planted a dozen bugs.

He took out his frustration in a vicious kick at the nearest closed box. That earned him the sound of something exploding, although nothing came out of the box. Intrigued past caution and his anger for a moment, he carefully looked inside. He'd killed a very large computer monitor. It was apparently brand new, too, the manual and drivers diskette still in their plastic bag, taped to the top and dangling in front of the gaping hole where the screen had imploded when he'd kicked it. He smiled, glad to have cost them that small amount of money, before turning toward the back of this large room, trying to remember exactly which way they'd taken him, when nothing looked quite the way he remembered it.

There were three doors, one at each end of the building and one in the center, and a service elevator. The elevator was out of the question even though they had carried him up that way in '94. If the circuit breakers had been found, all the elevators were now non-operational; if not, they were all guarded. He closed his eyes for a minute, and ran backwards through the memories.

He had walked blindfolded--stumbled, actually--through a door and had been shoved to his right, ending up at the exit. He'd walked . . .. He returned to the door where he'd come in, stood with his back to the room, closed his eyes again, and _felt _the angle at which he'd walked across the room. Then he turned around till he'd reversed that angle. He was facing the middle door.

As soon as he carefully opened the door into the main part of the building, he could hear gunfire, oddly muffled. It certainly wasn't the sound of silenced weapons, but more like what you'd hear standing outside a sound-proofed room. He must be hearing echoes in the stairwells. The sounds were too distorted to catch directions and much too distorted to gauge which floor they were coming from.

This was going to be a hellish trip, but if there was any chance of finding anyone or anything left behind, he was going to take it.

In the third empty office he found his first dead FBI Agent, killed by the type of wound that had almost killed him in Raleigh, North Carolina, during the case where Luther Lee Boggs pulled his phoney psychic act on death row. The agent had bled out from a bullet hole to one thigh, probably when his femoral artery was torn. He spared a second to wonder why he hadn't seen or heard ambulances on his way over here, and then decided it didn't matter. Someone had called it, deciding not to have them standing by in advance, and had called it dead wrong. He swallowed and forced himself to pull the chest protector off the man before continuing his search. The chest protector fit, thank God, and he headed again for the stairwell in the middle of the hallway.

He made it all the way up without encountering any living person or seeing anything but scraps of paper and marks on stairs and walls where things had scraped while being taken downstairs. By the time he reached the top floor, he could no longer hear gunshots, nor voices to give him a direction in which to search, so he turned to the left, the way he remembered coming from. As he headed toward the back hall, he passed several more dead bodies, none of them FBI. When he made that turn he saw a dead body half-way down the hall and a redheaded agent with a bandage around his left thigh, barely sitting up, propped against the wall.

The gun was raised and pointing at him before he could even open his mouth.

"Freeze. Drop your weapon." The voice was young and scared.

Mulder, who had his hands in plain sight, smiled and waggled his empty fingers. "No weapon. Besides, I'm one of you." He shrugged his shoulders to emphasize the chest protector.

"You can't be. You're not dressed like us." He was digging in his pocket while he spoke. "Put your hands on your head, turn around, and back up here so I can cuff you."

Mulder did _not_ want to get handcuffed, but from the look in the young man's eyes, this was the first time he'd shot at anyone or been shot at in return, and he could pull the trigger at any wrong move. So Mulder put his hands on his head, interlaced his fingers, and slowly backed up. He glanced over his shoulder, saw that he was close enough, and said, "I'm putting my hands down now."

He heard the clink of the handcuffs but nothing touched him. Then: "Kneel; I can't reach that high."

He had started to protest when the gun slammed across the backs of both legs, knocking him off balance. He landed on hands and knees and stayed there, waiting for the OK to move.

What he heard was a whimper.

A look over his shoulder showed the agent curled up on his side, clutching his wounded leg. His face was white and sweaty; he was obviously hanging onto consciousness by the skin of his teeth. An incongruous thought distracted Mulder momentarily--_I didn't even think "by sheer force of will"_\--before he was turning around to help, still on his hands and knees.

The gun came up again, wavering in circles and simultaneously drooping further and further.

He wasn't expecting what happened just as he got his hand on the gun. The bullet, hitting him at such close range, knocked his right arm completely out from under him and he crashed chest- first onto the man's legs. They both screamed at the impact, but Mulder stayed conscious while the other man went limp.

When he could drag himself off, he was surprised to find that after all that he only had the proverbial flesh wound. It was strictly because his center of gravity had been so far forward that he'd fallen; if he had not been reaching forward with his weight on his right arm, he would have been able to keep his balance. He was tearing that shirt sleeve off to use as a bandage when he realized that his knees were soaking wet.

A glance down showed a spreading puddle of blood, and his wound was forgotten in the necessity of trying to keep the other man alive. The wound was far enough down his leg that a tourniquet would work--if there was anything to use to twist the bandage tight enough. This was a hallway; there was nothing here but Mulder, the unconscious agent, and the gun.

It wasn't even debatable; he stuck the gun under the bandage and began twisting. When the flow of blood had slowed to a trickle, the next problem to solve was how to keep the tourniquet tight while he continued looking for Scully. He held the gun in place with one hand while the other fumbled the handcuffs onto the unconscious man's wrists. Then he hooked the handcuff chain around the gun. When Mulder slowly let go, the weight of man's arms was enough to stop the gun moving, and the handcuffs stopped his arms from slipping to the floor.

He could leave.

Skinner was not happy. The clean up crew--what was left of it-- had holed up in a three room laboratory here on the fourth floor with no easy or safe way in. Jack Kiley wasn't up here, nor were most of his men. One of those few men was talking about a bloodbath on the third floor. Elvina Towell's team was mostly intact, and Elvina was as steady as any combat veteran, for all that her experience was confined to situations that had been resolved before shots were fired.

Scully was somewhere with her three-man team, but no one knew exactly where because they had strict orders to stay back until things were quiet and then find their way to that laboratory Mulder had been in. With the shielding in this building, his calls to them went unanswered. He didn't even know where the EMTs and ambulances were, because the agent he'd sent outside to direct them was not here, and that meant she was dead or lying wounded somewhere. He decided to look for Scully himself because he knew where she was supposed to be. It wasn't worth it to brief a two-man unit and send them looking, with no further action expected anywhere but here. With a quiet, "You're in charge, Agent Towell," he took off.

A gun shot somewhere up ahead had him running forward. He paused at the end of each hallway and looked around the corner. Finally he saw a man kneeling over a downed man. The carrot-red hair on the floor, brighter even than Scully's, marked him as one of her unarmed specialists. So it was not at all difficult to think-- just for an instant--of putting a bullet in that man's back. Then his common sense took over and he yelled, "FREEZE. Federal Agent. You're under arrest."

Mulder couldn't believe it. Skinner? Yelling at him? Couldn't the man recognize one of his own agents?! Especially one wearing a Kevlar vest with fluorescent white letters that screamed FBI? Then the reality of the situation hit and he realized that from anywhere but right here, the lettering wasn't visible, the man under him looked dead, and he was the killer. He raised his hands and asked, "Can I get up, sir?"

Later he would swear he could hear the sound of Assistant Director Skinner's jaw dropping. What he actually heard was nothing--silence for at least ten seconds--until Skinner said, "Agent Mulder, what the hell are you doing out of the hospital?"

He finished getting up and said, "Joining the raid, _sir_. This is _mine. _I nearly died for this. It's my right to be here."

Skinner changed the subject, coming forward and gesturing at the unconscious man. "What about Jeremy Silver?"

"Alive. I just finished making a tourniquet for his leg. Several guards obviously had a preference for leg shots. He's the fourth person I've seen with one, and he's the only one still alive."

Skinner was close enough now to see for himself. "Hmft! A very non-standard way to use a gun, Agent Mulder. I don't want to hear of that happening again. The blood will damage the finish.

"And I'd advise staying out of Silver's sight, if he should happen to wake up before the EMTs get to him. He'll be mortally embarrassed to find himself wearing handcuffs, even if they are what's keeping him alive."

The humor was totally inappropriate and helped Mulder take his mind off the fact that he'd come so close to death not five minutes ago that he still had the shakes. He was wiping his bloody hands on his even-bloodier pants when Skinner reached out for his right arm.

"You're wounded. How did that happen?"

He looked at his boss. "Uh . . . Silver did it. I was trying to help him, but he misunderstood."

Skinner shook his head. "That's not good enough; there are powder burns all over your shirt. At the inquiry you can try to explain how you two could get close enough for him to do that, without you having identified yourself to his satisfaction."

He sighed. Nothing was going right for him today. "Where's Scully?"

"Unknown. I was looking for her myself." Skinner glanced back the way he'd come. "Which direction did you come from?"

He nodded in the same direction his boss had come from. "That way. I haven't seen anything but empty rooms and dead bodies."

Skinner looked at him sharply. "You should have. That's where we have the last of them cornered. How could you miss it?"

Mulder thought about that. "I came up the emergency stairs in the center hallway. When I got up here I couldn't hear any gunfire or voices to tell me what was going on. I turned left because that's the direction we came from in '94. I assume you came from beyond me."

Skinner nodded. "All right then, we'll keep looking." He started forward.

Mulder hung back for an instant, thinking longingly of Silver's gun. "Ah . . . sir? You wouldn't have an extra gun, would you?"

Skinner turned around and stalked back up to him, restrained fury on his face. "I did _not _hear that, Agent Mulder. You are not supposed to be here. I'm allowing you to stay simply because I do not have an agent to spare to baby-sit you, which leaves me to do the job. You do _not _have your psychiatrist's permission to have your gun back, you have _not_ re-qualified, and you certainly do _not_ have the Bureau's OK to be in the field. So I don't want to hear another word about this.

"You will _not _get in front of me, you will _not _enter a room until I've searched it first, you will not do a single thing for the entire rest of the time we're here except follow me around. Is that understood?"

Mulder opened his mouth to object, but Skinner beat him to it.

"Say yes, Agent Mulder, or I will handcuff you and stuff you in the nearest lockable room and I will write on the door, using your own blood, 'Do not open until situation resolved. Signed A. D. Skinner'. Is that what you want, Agent Mulder?"

He was up to his ass in trouble. There was no denying it. So he nodded and said, "No, sir. I mean, yes, sir, I'll do absolutely nothing but follow you around."

With a look that would have flayed a Marine recruit, Skinner turned back around and resumed searching.

Scully paused in yet another empty office to give her two remaining people a minute's rest before heading for the laboratory. "Oscar, Kathy--you OK?"

Oscar, white-faced and shaking, nodded but didn't try to say anything.

Kathy, equally as pale, husked out, "Yeah." After a pause, she added, "It's one thing to see people who are already shot or dead, but Jeremy . . .. We've been dating since we met senior year in high school. He talked me into going with him to see the Bureau recruiter at college last year. We're--we're engaged and I had to leave him there and he might die and Dana what'll I _do_?" The last words came out in a rush and then Kathy buried her face in one hand, the other hanging at her side, gun drooping from loose fingers, but with all that still not dropped.

Scully stepped across to her. "Kathy. Kathy, look at me." When the younger woman looked up, tears running down her face, Dana continued, "Kathy, he'll be _fine. _The wound looks bad, and it certainly hurts him a lot, but he's _not _going to die. Yes, he'll be in the hospital for a while, and yes, he'll be on crutches for a while after that, but he'll be fine.

"You did what you had to. You did have to leave him. He has a gun, he can defend himself if he has to. But he won't need that gun, Kathy: the fighting has all been done ahead of us. To this point that one man who shot him is the only person we've seen who could hurt us. And he'd already met the beta team, and was so badly wounded that he died right after he shot Jeremy. Your fiance is probably safer now than we are, if that's any consolation. You can do this, Kathy. Now let's get going: we have work to do."

After another minute, Kathy wiped her face with her free hand, wiped her nose on her sleeve, nodded, and said, "OK." Her voice was tremulous and she looked as if she'd burst back into tears any second, but she was trying.

"All right, then. According to the information Mulder gave me, the lab he was in should be one of the next two or three doors on the right. If there's anything left in that lab, which I strongly doubt, your primary objective now is the refrigerators on the far side of the center island. What you're primarily looking for will be any green fluids and/or any reddish-yellow fluids, but get samples of everything." Her mind spun back to that other laboratory and her voice saying, "If this is monkey pee, Mulder, you're on your own." She blinked, steadied herself mentally, and went on. "Remember, don't attempt to open any test tubes or flasks; the fumes could be dangerous. If there's a spill, take a sample. Pack whatever you can fit into your backpacks and grab whatever documentation you find. I'll be checking the computer or file cabinets, if there are any. After you finish the frig, go for the file cabinets if I'm on the computer, otherwise all the drawers and cupboards. Yank the drawers right out; we don't care about damage at this point, we're looking for anything that might have been forgotten. You two go clockwise from the door, I'll go counterclockwise. Oscar--cupboards above; Kathy, drawers below. Oscar, you'll finish first, even doing all the cupboards, so go back and help Kathy." She smiled at them. "That's what you get for being tall, Oscar. You get to jump up and down checking the top shelves while we two short people get to break our backs bending down to the floors."

She got two nods and led the way back down the hall. It worried her that only Kathy had a gun; she'd only confiscated two along the way and one she had left with Jeremy. It would have been better to give the second gun to Oscar, not because she automatically thought the men should have the weapons, but because he was tall, taller even than Mulder, and could see things she and Kathy might miss. But he didn't have the slightest idea how to handle a gun, and Kathy and Jeremy were "Reenacters", spending weekends with the local group that reenacted Civil War battles. Kathy went so far as to pretend she was one of the few women who had donned men's clothing and joined the army-- whichever side they believed in--to be with boyfriends or husbands. She and Jeremy might not know modern firearms, but they knew how to handle a gun safely and were used to the recoil.

She shook her head; this raid, what she had seen of it at least, had gone bad from the minute Elvina's beta team had stormed the loading dock door. The FBI agents were returning gunfire before they even had a chance to identify themselves, killing one guard and wounding two others who had been loading boxes on a forklift. As per Skinner's orders, Scully held back until the sounds of trouble receded; when she and her experts got to the fourth floor, one of the two assigned to the beta team, they found offices already stripped of everything that could be helpful in their mission--and messy evidence of the kind of opposition Elvina and her agents met when they arrived. Judging from the bodies left behind, there had only been a handful of people left in the building, packing the last few left-overs. But those people appeared to have fought ferociously, preferring to die rather than be taken alive.

That reminded her and she tried her head-set again, but got the same dead air that meant the entire inside of this building was shielded to prevent interference to the computers and other delicate medical equipment. With the sound-proofing also, communication was down to line of sight or hand-carried messages. If she could have spared Kathy or Oscar, he or she could have gone back downstairs to lead the EMTs to Jeremy. But she couldn't, and all Kathy's tears wouldn't change anything.

She was at the third doorway now. The other two flattened against the wall as they'd already learned to do, waiting while she checked the room. Her eyes widened at the high-tech lab facility she was looking at. So much equipment! And most of it still in place because it was built-in. Either this hadn't been here when Mulder was here, or his eyes had been too inflamed for him to see anything clearly. She saw two men on the other side of the island dismantling something she didn't recognize. She quickly pulled her head back and waved a hand backwards, letting Oscar and Kathy know to back up.

At the next room back she whispered, "We hit the jackpot. Most of that lab is intact because the equipment is built in. However, there are two men dismantling something. I'm going to try to get them alive. Kathy, you're my backup. I don't want you to come in until you hear my all clear. If you don't hear it within five minutes, the two of you head back to Jeremy. Is that clear?"

When she got two nods, she checked her gun once again and stepped into the hall. At the entrance to the lab she took a breath to steady herself, took one step inside with the gun in position, and said, "FBI. FREEZE."

The two men froze.

She took another step inside and said, "Put down those tools-- _slowly._ Then hands clasped behind your necks and come over here." The tools went down to the counter and the hands went in place. Then the two turned to walk toward her, and in her surprise at seeing the gas masks, her gun lowered just slightly.

A third man, previously hidden from view behind the island, chose that exact instant to rise up just far enough to throw something at her. She reacted instinctively, ducking sideways and shooting at--and missing--the screwdriver heading her way.

But her second shot didn't miss the man, who disappeared with a chopped-off grunt and a resounding clatter. When she heard nothing further from his direction, and the other two were still standing with their hands behind their necks, she felt it safe enough to call for her people.

They came in and she directed the two men to come closer and stand back to back. Then she had Kathy and Oscar handcuff them together, looping one pair of handcuffs through the other so the two men wouldn't be able to get their hands in front of themselves, and wouldn't be able to go anywhere in a hurry because of the other person who would be walking backwards.

Only then did she feel it safe to check on the third man. She walked carefully, gun in position, up to the island.

Suddenly she was dizzy, her eyes were burning and itching, there was an unpleasant smell in the air, and she knew she wouldn't be able to get any closer. She had to put one hand out to steady herself, and in that moment the entire situation went from bad to terrible.

"You should have taken the advice I gave Agent Mulder. _You're _better off anywhere else than the X-Files."

He stood up, and through eyes suddenly tearing beyond belief, and a nose and throat that hurt like she'd inhaled tear gas, she saw "Baseball Bat Man". He held an aluminum bat in his left hand while his right arm hung limp, green blood--"_GREEN BLOOD_," her mind shrieked--flowing from the bullet wound she had inflicted. He stepped toward her while she tried and tried to raise the gun to shoot him again, but another whiff of the fumes bubbling off the wound and she was too weak to do anything. As her knees buckled, she heard both Oscar and Kathy collapsing also, and she damned herself for a fool, trusting that she wouldn't need another Agent with weapons training. Kathy had not been able to pull the trigger.

It was the sickening crunch of the baseball bat shattering a skull and Kathy's scream of horror and the unmistakable stench of bowels and bladder letting loose in death that woke her. Then Kathy's scream of horror was cut off by another crunch. She was waiting for that same crunch to kill her when she felt hands searching her and then pulling out her handcuff key. She caught another whiff of the blood and spun out again into the black nothingness surrounding her.

This time she woke up to the sensation of being dragged to her feet, held upright by the hands hooked under her armpits. Another pair of hands, she realized dimly, was unfastening her chest protector. The first pair of hands carefully rearranged themselves, steadying her while she got control of her legs and feet enough to stand and while the second pair lifted the Kevlar vest over her head. When they were done, Baseball Bat Man spoke again. "You know who I am, Agent Scully?"

The voice came from somewhere in front of her, a somewhere she couldn't see because her eyes were now swollen completely shut. She understood exactly what Mulder had meant about the itching. If she could have gotten a hand loose to scratch, she'd be bloody in seconds. She tried to answer but all that came out was a strangled croak.

"Don't bother trying. Your voice will be useless for a while yet. Nod, shake your head, whatever. Since you know who I am, you can probably guess why I'm here. We expected both you and Agent Mulder, based on what we heard in his hospital room--so Agent Mulder doesn't like Mongolian Beef, does he?--but since you're here alone, I have to modify my plans. I can't fracture your skull like I did his because you have to be able to carry a message to him."

There was a pause and then out of nowhere she felt the bat slam her forehead, snapping her head back and then forward so fast she knew immediately she had whiplash, even before she felt the pain in her neck or forehead.

"You _answer _when I talk to you."

The voice was deadly, and she suddenly remembered Mulder's report on what happened to him in January in the Headquarters' parking garage. She nodded and that small movement of her neck was enough to cause a moan to escape.

"All right. Now that we both know how this is going to go, do you want to choose which limb gets it? First, I should add; all four are going to be useless when I'm done."

Scully cringed, and for the first time in her career she knew without a shred of doubt that she was going to pray for death to release her from pain. The only thing she could hope for was that Skinner would wonder where she was and send someone after her. With that hope held firmly in place, she shifted her weight enough to lift her left leg, because she couldn't tell him to destroy it first. The sudden explosion of pain in her right shoulder was so monumental that she didn't feel the scream tearing from her throat, or even hear the scream itself.

Mulder and Skinner had come to the end of the back hall and were ready to turn down the side hall when they heard a scream of agony that was unmistakably Scully's. They took off together and though Mulder had the longer legs and was quite a few years younger, he found himself quickly left behind because of how out of condition he was.

He hadn't quite reached the doorway when Skinner--he assumed it was Skinner--fired once, then twice more. There was a clatter of something hitting the floor, and then a body dropped. He didn't care that there might be others in the room; he ran straight in, and when he could see nothing on this side of the central island but Skinner just inside the door, holding a gun on two unarmed men wearing gas masks on the far side of the island, he dashed around it.

It was a slaughterhouse, and the only person who could possibly be alive was Scully. Her two specialists had had their skulls smashed in by the aluminum bat lying on the floor next to the man with two bullet holes over his heart and one in his head and one in his arm, and there was green and red blood everywhere. Mulder smelled the fumes and almost, but not quite, started to turn around to run out of the room. When nothing happened to him he took a breath to be sure. A tickle in the back of his throat, a mild tearing of his eyes, a sudden desire to sneeze, but nothing else. Even the smell wasn't so unpleasant this time. Right on the heels of that came: Then he had no time for anything but Scully. She was moaning, and from the misshapen look of her right shoulder, it was obvious that she had screamed when Baseball Bat Man smashed it. Then he saw the rash on her face and her left hand coming up to scratch.

He dropped down next to her and captured that hand. "Don't scratch, Scully. You'll only make it worse. Trust me. I know."

She wasn't aware he was there, not really aware of anything but her pain and the itching, and every time she jerked against his hands, trying to reach her face, she gave a little yelp as she jarred her other shoulder.

He couldn't let her suffer like that. It could be fifteen-twenty minutes till the EMTs reached her. With a groan of anguish, he said, "I'm sorry, Scully," and released her hand so he could press on both carotid arteries, cutting off the blood to her brain until she fainted. He could only hope that the pain would keep her unconscious.

Mulder was still sitting beside her, stroking her hair and talking to her, when the EMTs came, making noises on the other side of the room. Skinner, a distant part of his mind said. He was overcome too.

One of them came closer, took one look at Scully's face, now nearly covered with the rash from the fumes, listened to the harsh rasp of her breathing, and said, "Joe, this one. Stat! The same kind of chemical burn, only much worse. It's in her lungs, too."

He roused enough to say, "You've got to take her to GUMC. Tell them to pull the ER record for Fox Mulder, M-U-L-D-E-R, for May, 1994. It's not strictly chemical. My record will give them enough information so they'll be prepared to treat her by the time you get there. Don't let her scratch, if she should wake up.

"And watch out for her right shoulder. He smashed it."

He watched them load her carefully onto a gurney, oxygen mask in place, IV running into her left hand, and knew that her world was destroyed too. It didn't take an expert to know that shoulder would never heal normally. She, too, would never again be a Field Agent.

He didn't know how much later it was when someone pulled him to his feet and led him out of the building. He was put in a vehicle and the vehicle started moving.

After a while, he became aware of the fact that he was in a bed, and there was sunlight in the room. It was daytime. He made himself look around, and it was the hospital room he'd been in . . .. He supposed that was yesterday.

His right arm was bandaged and his right hip felt like someone had used it for a pincushion. They would have given him a painkiller and an antibiotic and, God help him, probably _another _tetanus booster. From the listless way he felt and what time of day it must be according to the sun, he'd also had at least one dose of Valium. They must have talked to Kennedy and were worried he would go berserk when it all sank in.

They didn't need to worry. There was nothing to go berserk for. After all, when your whole world is destroyed and you've already committed yourself to staying alive, what is there left to do but pick up the pieces and make a new life?


	19. Chapter 19

**Room 812**  
** 3:31 p.m., July 1**

"Scully? You accepting visitors?"

The voice was Mulder's. She turned off the radio and tried one- handedly to neaten the covers around her. She wished she could wear her own pajamas instead of the shapeless hospital gowns, but there was no way with an IV in one hand and the various pieces of external hardware holding her other shoulder in place. "Yes, Mulder, come on in."

He looked good; definitely better than the last time she'd seen him. There was probably some significance to the fact that he hadn't brought her anything, but it wasn't worth spending the energy on.

He sat down, then got up and pulled the chair around until he was at the exact angle that made it easiest to look at him while she was mostly lying down. She smiled. "Lots of experience on the other side, right?"

A broad grin passed quickly over his face. "Yeah. You get sick of asking people to move after a while; you just take it for granted you're either going to have a sore neck or you're going to only see them out of the corner of one eye." He shifted uncomfortably before speaking again. "Margaret told me what your doctor said about how long it would take. I'm sorry, Scully."

She started to shake her head, then gasped as that movement was enough to jar her shoulder. It was a while before she could relax, even after the extra Demerol had taken effect. If this was even half of what Mulder had gone through last year, she counted it a major miracle that he hadn't turned out a narcotic addict.

He was holding her hand, and she doubted she'd ever seen him looking quite that scared. She gave his hand a reassuring squeeze and said, "I'm OK. It just takes me a bit to recover. I don't have anywhere near your practice, y'know?" When he tried to smile in return, she continued, "When did you get discharged? I haven't been paying too much attention to things until today."

"I know; I stopped in yesterday between tests. Dr. Carrington sprung me just now." He shrugged, looking embarrassed. "I didn't want to bring you something tacky from the hospital gift shop." Then he looked much happier. "Frohike's going to come get me and take me over to the DMV so I can get my driver's license again."

She gave him her best smile. "That's wonderful. So what did Isabelle say about your one-year check up?"

He shrugged. "Everything's normal. But we knew that back in December. Kennedy's got me scheduled twice a week for the next month, to make sure I'm coping all right with everything."

She wasn't sure she was hearing him correctly. "Dr. Kennedy? How did he get involved? What's to cope with?"

His thumb, which had been making gentle circles on the back of her hand, stopped. His face went blank for an instant before he shook his head like he was clearing out the cobwebs. "Right. You don't know. Friday, after the dinner that wasn't worth eating because it was so tasteless, Dr. Carrington came to see me. She told me she was keeping me to do all the tests. Then, right on the heels of that statement, came a nurse with a couple of cans of Ensure. I kind of lost it. Things went downhill from there and they had to sedate me. When I woke up the next morning, I was restrained and they'd put an NG tube down, and Kennedy was there. I just fell apart, Scully. Everything kind of hit all at once. Everything I'd gone through, the things I'd put you and your mom through, the things I hadn't been able to do, and the fact that I was never going to have my old life back again. I cried all day.

"Margaret was there when I finally stopped crying. She was there because they couldn't get a hold of you or Skinner. After I convinced her I was OK and she left, I took off looking for the building because I knew that the raid had to be in progress.

"I was there when Skinner killed Baseball Bat Man, Scully. I saw your shoulder. I knew immediately that it was bad. I must have gone into shock, because I don't remember who brought me outside, or even coming back here. The next thing I remember, it was daylight and I was obviously tranquilized. Kennedy told me Dr. Yamaguchi hadn't wanted me back; he wanted me on the psych ward, for when I realized what had happened to you. But Margaret refused, and Kennedy and Dr. Carrington backed her up. They all knew that my crisis had already passed. And they were right."

He shrugged. "Yamaguchi apparently dropped out after that; he turned me over to Dr. Carrington. I haven't had any medicine of any kind since Saturday, and I'm doing OK. That's why Kennedy let me have my license now.

"I know I'm never going to be a Field Agent again, Scully. I talked with Skinner on Monday, and he's going to see whether the Bureau will keep me as a full-time instructor. If not, I'll take disability retirement, find something else to do, and be a guest lecturer."

It was almost too much to handle at once. Here she'd thought Mulder would crash when Skinner told him he couldn't be a Field Agent ever again, and he'd already figured that out and adjusted to it, apparently in _one _day. With nothing more than tears. Sure, there might be minor crises later on, when he ran into things that reminded him of "the old days", but all in all, he was coping much better than she would have believed possible.

She reached up to touch her shoulder. "Dr. Hagopian says that eventually I should regain about 70% mobility. Most of what'll be missing will be the overhead ranges. I should also have near- normal strength in the ranges I do get back. There's no apparent nerve damage either, so I'll be able to continue as a Pathologist.

"Dr. Theo came by this morning with get well cards. I can't believe it--he offered me the job as his Assistant. Renata wants to go back to her old position. After all her years of waiting to get the Assistant Chief Pathologist position, she's decided that the hassles and the hours are more than she wants to cope with, with three teenagers.

She looked at him with tears in her eyes. "Mulder, it's as if God had it all arranged for us. Take something away, but give us something else that in the long run will last longer and let us be around to enjoy it."

Mulder said, "I hope _we _can enjoy it for a long time, Scully. I'm ready to go on living, no matter who arranged it. So long as you're there, too." Then he took the hand he was holding and brought it to his lips for a kiss. After she got past the shock of that gesture, and the unmistakable warmth in his eyes, she was thrilled.

Scully gave him the biggest smile she could manage. With all the nightmares over, things were definitely looking up.

_And it's hi-ho-hey, I am the bold marauder._  
_ It's hi-ho-hey, I am the white destroyer._

_For I will show you silver and gold,_  
_ And I will show you treasure._  
_ And I will show you thunder and steel,_  
_ And I will be your teacher._  
_ And I will show you grotto and cave,_  
_ And sacrificial altar._  
_ And I will show you blood on the stone_  
_ And I will be your mentor._  
_ And Night will be our darling._  
_ And Fear will be our name._

_And it's hi-ho-hey, I am the bold marauder._  
_ It's hi-ho-hey, I am the white destroyer._

_For I will take you out by the hand,_  
_ And lead you to the hunter._  
_ And I will take a Fury to wife,_  
_ And I will be your Father._  
_ And we will go to ravage and kill,_  
_ And we will go to plunder._  
_ And we will wave the widowing flag,_  
_ And I will be your Mother._  
_ And Christ will be our darling._  
_ And Fear will be our name._

_And it's hi-ho-hey, I am the bold marauder._  
_ It's hi-ho-hey, I am the white destroyer._

_For we will sour the winds on high,_  
_ And we will soil the rivers._  
_ And we will burn the grain in the field,_  
_ And I will be your Lover._  
_ And we will dress in helmet and shield,_  
_ And dip our tongues in slaughter._  
_ And we will sing the Warrior's Song,_  
_ And lift the praise of murder._  
_ And Death will be our darling._  
_ And Fear will be our name._

_And it's hi-ho-hey, I am the bold marauder._  
_ It's hi-ho-hey, I am the white destroyer._


End file.
